Anna

Anna van der Merwe is currently completing her BMus Honours (postgraduate) at UCT's South African College of Music under the tutelage of Prof. Farida Bacharova. She has received several prizes during her studies so far including the Gerry Meyer memorial prize, Alfred Libochowitz strings prize and Mackenzie Memorial bursary and has been on the Dean’s Merit list since 1st year and was invited to join the Golden Key Foundation for high-achieving students.

Anna is also a keen chamber musician and is a member of the prize-winning Axiom Piano Trio with Aristide du Plessis (cello) and Francois Botha (piano), as well as the Strubenholm Duo with fellow violinist Sang woo Jun. Both groups were awarded the overall category prize for university finalists at the Stellenbosch National Ensemble Competition in 2011 and 2012. In 2011 Anna was one of two students invited to join an ensemble of local and international musicians such as Nina Schumann, Peter Martens, Searmi Park and Frank Stadler for performances at the Klein Karoo Klassique festival.

In 2012 Anna was invited by Jan Repko to attend the PorzianoMusica course in Italy, and was also awarded a scholarship by international and local faculty of the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival to attend a summer school at the Anton Bruckner University in Austria in 2013.

More recently, she formed the Proteus String Quartet with members Sang-woo Jun, Cara Coetzee and Eddie McLean, who have just returned from a string quartet course in the UK, where they received coaching from members of the London Haydn Quartet as one of three invited young quartets from around the world. The Proteus Quartet has performed concerts to high acclaim in Stellenbosch, Cape Town and the U.K and were invited to perform at President Barack Obama’s speech at the University of Cape Town in 2013.

As well as having been a finalist in the 2012 Fine Music Radio/Nussbaum competition, Anna won the Strings category prize at the 2012 ATKV Muziq competition and performed in the final round gala concert. Anna has been concertmaster of the UCTSO since her first year in 2010 and was also concertmaster of the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival’s symphony orchestra under the baton of Daniel Raiskin in 2012. She also performs regularly as an apprentice in the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra. She has also performed as soloist with several of South Africa’s top orchestras including the CamerataTintaBarrocca, South African National Youth Orchestra, Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Kwa-zuluNatal Philharmonic and University of Cape Town Symphony Orchestras. Anna has received masterclasses from Jan Repko, Alexander Gilman, Indira Koch, Sybille Tschopp, HrachyaAvanesyan, Josef Sabaini, Stefano Pagliani and Daniel Rowland, among others.