Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival

15/08/2026

https://mailchi.mp/sicmf.co.za/thank-you-2026?e=[UNIQID]

Ten days, 31 faculty artists, two world premieres, standing ovations, and a percussion reel the internet is still talking about. Here's our wrap-up.

09/08/2026

This Women’s Day, we are celebrating the 22 powerhouse women of the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival (SICMF) 2026. From world-class stage performances to the grueling behind-the-scenes logistics, these incredible visionaries, administrators, and artists shaped the sound, spirit, and success of our 21st festival edition!

Join us in applauding the brilliant minds, hands, and hearts who kept the music playing:

🎻 Artistic Leadership & Faculty:

Nina Schumann, Miriam Helms Ålien, Farida Bacharova, Suzanne Martens, Dana Zemtsov, Maja Bogdanović, Julia Harguindey, Kärin Hendrickson

🥁 Faculty Assistants:
Victoria Sparks, Chevónne Plaatjies, Ashleigh Botha

📋 Operations & Logistics:
Theresa van der Merwe, Christon Southgate, Helena Kriel, Leigh-Lynn Smidt, Lianne van Renssen, Ikaelelo Madikgetla, Tiffany Schultz

🏛️ Institutional & Departmental Support:
Vicky Davis, Francesca Levenderis, Lettie Isaacs

Thank you for inspiring the next generation of musicians with your dedication, your artistry, and your unstoppable work ethic and for helping to make this year’s festival so special.

WomenOfSU

04/08/2026

When a concertino is written by a clarinetist, you can tell. Ante Grgin’s Concertino is playful, jazzy, and absolutely unrelenting in what it asks of the soloist — which is probably why YaoGuang Zhai looked like he was having the time of his life playing it.

Principal clarinet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, with Michael Repper conducting — and those high notes? Clean as a whistle every time. By the final bar, Endler Hall was on its feet.

Faculty Concert 7 · SICMF 2026 🎶

ChamberMusic Stellenbosch

01/08/2026

To our extraordinary 2026 faculty — thank you.

For the lessons that ran over. For the extra sessions squeezed into already full days. For the patience, the honesty, the encouragement, and the sheer generosity of sharing your talent with the next generation of musicians.

You came from South Africa and across the world and gave everything you had — not just on the Endler Hall stage, but in the coaching rooms, the corridors, the rehearsals and the conversations that students will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

This is what makes SICMF what it is. Not the concerts — the people.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. 🎻

ThankYou

29/07/2026

25/07/2026

Pavel Karmanov wrote Musica con Cello for one person — Boris Andrianov. Boris premiered it at the Vivacello Festival in Moscow in November 2014, and the piece has been his ever since. It’s the kind of work that stops you in your tracks — deeply felt, completely absorbing, and in Boris’s hands, utterly extraordinary.

At Faculty Concert 7, the Endler Hall fell silent for it. One audience member — aged 13 — declared it the best thing he had ever heard. We’re inclined to agree.

Watch this clip of Boris with Michael Repper conducting and see for yourself. 🎻

Stellenbosch

19/07/2026

Micah John Maloi is six years old. He’s part of the Cape Whalers Field Band, he attends False Bay Primary, and his mum says he’s been banging on kitchen bowls since he was a baby.

Last week he came to SICMF for the first time. At the end of the student percussion concert he walked up to the stage, played for Jauvon Gilliam — principal timpanist of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC — and got a photo with him.

That’s the kind of thing that stays with a child forever. Inspiring the next generation of South African musicians is at the core of everything we do at SICMF — and Micah is exactly who we do it for.

We don’t think this is the last time we’ll be seeing Micah!

Thank you to Aunty Lettie Isaacs for making sure he was in that hall. 🥁

JauvonGilliam CapeWhalers NextGeneration

18/07/2026

Every year the full Festival Concert Orchestra packs into a bus and heads out to a local community to perform for a free concert— and every year it reminds us why this festival exists beyond the walls of Endler Hall.

This year it was Groendal Community Hall, with Kärin Hendrickson conducting and Siwoo Kim as soloist. Tchaikovsky, Bruch and Bizet — and in the audience, children hearing a live orchestra for the very first time in their lives.

The look on their faces is something we carry with us long after the festival is over.

📷

ChamberMusic KärinHendrickson SiwooKim