Abel Moeng

BIO

Abel Ketshepile Motsoadi Moeng was born in 1972 in Tlhabane, a township just outside of Rustenburg, in the Northwest Province. After being recruited in 1990 by the Bophuthatswana Arts Council as a soloist, choral member and Administrative Assistant, where he worked until 1993, Moeng headed for the University of Cape Town. Following his two years of study in Cape Town, he came to the United States and entered the Juilliard School in New York as a student of Charles Kellis. In May 1999 he received his Bachelor Degree in Music and in May 2000 began his Masters program, also at Juilliard, expecting to complete this second degree by May, 2001

Abel Moeng is a recipient of numerous Scholarships and Awards, including the first Alice Tully Scholarship at Juilliard, University of Cape Town Scholarships, the Opera Prize of South Africa, the Best Opera Studio Singer of the Cape Town Opera, the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, the Oppenheimer Trust scholarship, the National Arts and Culture South Africa Award. In addition, he was the first singer to represent South Africa at the Cardiff Singer world competition in Wales in 1997, where he won a prize and was chosen as one of five finalists. Other prizes that Moeng has received are the Opera prize, the Arlene Auger scholarship, Puccini Foundation Lucia Albanese Award, the New York Arts Club and YWCA prizes from competitions in New York, the Loren Zachary prize won in Los Angeles, and the South African Music Rights Organization prize. He has also had the privilege of working and studying at Juilliard with Leontyne Price in 1995 and Maestro James Levine in 1997.

Since 1995, Mr. Moeng has performed a wide range of operatic roles, oratorio and concerts in South Africa and the United States, as well as the United Kingdom. As a student at the University of Cape Town, he performed Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro and Leporello in Don Giovanni, with other later performances that include: Enoch in Enoch, Prophet of God, and Escamillo in Carmen, for the Cape Town, Grahamstown and Namibia Operas; Crown in Porgy and Bess for the Grahamstown Opera; the four villains in Tales of Hoffman; Sciarrone in Tosca; Monterone in Rigoletto for the Cape Town Opera; the second armed guard in the Magic Flute for the Juilliard Opera Workshop; Daniel Webster in Mother of Us All; the Verdi Requiem for the Wales Eisteddfod; the Bass soloist in the Creation and Messiah with the Cape Town Philharmonic and in Washington, D.C. in 1998; and the Bass soloist again in Israel in Egypt for the Liederkreis Foundation in New York.

Mr. Moeng has sung in the Pavarotti Masterclass in February 2001 at the Juilliard Theater and has also received much acclaim from his audiences and teachers.

Maestro James Levine - “First-rate, beautiful voice,” with a “ big, expressive talent.”

Maestro Luciano Pavarotti – “ Bravissimo”