Adieu and entrée for Schwietering

Associate Professor Jurgen Schwietering brings to an end his 15-year career at UCT at the end of December to start at the University of the Free State as a full professor next year. Apart from teaching selected students, he will also lead the Odeion Quartet, the only fully professional string quartet in South Africa, and act as master and leader of the Free State Symphony orchestra.

Schwietering recalls that when he began at UCT, he had three students. He soon gathered other responsibilities: concerts committee member, faculty board member, head of strings and orchestra studies, leader of the UCT Symphony Orchestra, and head of conducting. In another coup, Schwietering has been invited to join the Japanese Super World Orchestra, made up of leaders of many international orchestras. "The first violin section, for example, consists of 14 different concert masters."

According to the list, Schwietering will sit next to the concert master of the Chicago Symphony, behind the leader of the Berlin Philharmonic." The ten-day festival is from March 20 to 30 and a DVD recording will be available afterwards.