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Ben Schoeman in Concert

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On Sunday, 6 October, at the NMU South Campus Auditorium from 15h00, experience the delight of hearing South African born piano virtuoso, Ben Schoeman, in concert.

Ben Schoeman is a Steinway Artist, and was awarded the first prize in the 11th UNISA Vodacom International Piano Competition in Pretoria, the gold medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition in London, the contemporary music prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, USA, the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, and the Huberte Rupert Prize for achievements in Classical Music from the South African Academy for Science and Art (Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns).

He has given solo, chamber music and concerto performances in concert halls over the world, including the Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore, Barbican, Cadogan, LSO St Luke’s and Queen Elizabeth Halls in London, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Gulbenkian Auditorium in Lisbon, the Fondazione Cariplo Auditorium in Milan, the Cape Town City Hall, and the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest. He has performed at many international festivals such as City of London, Edinburgh, Chester, Enescu Bucharest, Grahamstown and Ottawa. As a concerto soloist, he has collaborated in over 40 works with numerous conductors, including Wolfram Christ, Nicholas Cleobury, Daniel Boico, Bernhard Gueller, Carlos Izcaray, James Judd, Gérard Korsten, Theodore Kuchar, Diego Masson, En Shao, Yasuo Shinozaki, Arjan Tien and Conrad van Alphen.

He studied piano under Prof Joseph Stanford at the University of Pretoria and went on to postgraduate studies at the Accademia Pianistica ‘Incontri col Maestro’ in Imola, the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole near Florence and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with pedagogues such as Michel Dalberto, Boris Petrushansky, and Eliso Virsaladze. He obtained a doctorate in music from the University of London with a thesis on the piano works of the eminent South African composer Stefans Grové.

His recording of music by Franz Liszt under the Two Pianists label received critical acclaim in the American Record Review, as well as his recordings of Cello and Piano Sonatas by Anton Rubinstein and Sergei Rachmaninoff for Tonzauber in Vienna. His performance in London with pianist, Tessa Uys, of Beethoven’s 9 th Symphony, arranged for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka, has been televised numerous times. The duo has recorded all nine Beethoven Symphonies and two-piano works by Schumann, Saint-Saëns and Busoni for SOMM Recordings. Their first five albums have been released, receiving rave reviews in the BBC Music, International Piano and Gramophone Magazines as well as the Sunday Times, Classical Explorer and on BBC Radio 3 and Radio France.

Ben is a senior lecturer in piano and musicology at the University of Pretoria, where he received the Laureate Award and a C1 rating from the National Research Foundation. He has served as a jury member at national and international competitions.

For his programme he chose the following works:

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) – Piano Sonata in F major, K. 332
  • Claude Debussy (1862-1918) – Préludes, Book 2 (1913) Ondine and Feux d’artifice
  • Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) – Sonata no. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 (“Appassionata”)
  • Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) – Nocturne no. 6 in D flat major, Op. 63
  • Franz Liszt (1811-1886) – Sonata in B minor, S. 178
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