Khothatso

I am a black female cellist, who is 26 years of age, and grew up in a rural village called Shakung, in the Northwest province. I began my education at Itseng Primary School in Winterveld, a rural area to the north of Pretoria. The school is located on the border of Northwest and Gauteng provinces. Thereafter I attended Holy Trinity High School, a Catholic school in the same area of Winterveldwhere I matriculated in 2015.

 After completing high school I lived in Mabopane, and in 2016I had the opportunity to study towards music grades in classical music through a programme run by the University of South Africa (UNISA). The project was hosted in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria and I received a tuition scholarship from the UNISA music foundation (UMF) and a loan instrument (cello). 

In 2014 I began participating in the UMF Youth Orchestra. UNISA has two orchestra components known as UNISA Youth and Symphony Orchestra, for which I performed from 2015 to 2019. Furthermore, on four occasions I participated in the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival (SICMF) that takes place annually, from 2016 to 2019 playing the cello. In January 2019, I joined the University of Pretoria Symphony Orchestra (UPSO) and have since then continued to play at many of their events, including the Dean’s concerts for the School of Engineering and for the School of Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT). I hold an award from the UNISA Tshwane Jazz and Classical competition of 2018, where I was awarded a silver certificate for a solo cello performance.

In 2019 I played jazz cello at a number of concerts with a female jazz ensemble from Mamelodi called the Jazz Camp for Female Instrumentalists(JCFI) as part of their Four City Tour in South Africa. I taught music theory and cello practical pre-grade to Grade-3 level in a township-based programme in Mamelodi called Committed Arts for Cultural Advancement(CAFCA) in 2021 for a period of 1 year.