Louise is always practicing in every spare moment (often very early in the morning) and is loving learning new music she is recording for her solo album of South African viola music coming up in 2024. This includes lesser known, unknown and unpublished music by John Joubert, Allan Stephenson, Hendrik Hofmeyr, Surendran Reddy, Monthati Masebe and Priaulx Rainier.
Louise is loving being back at the RNCM and immersing herself in side by side chamber music and orchestral projects with students and other staff. There have already been exciting concerts including Mendelssohn Sextet, Dvorak Serenade and much more. Louise is recording her first solo album in July 2024 on the Meridian Label of all South African viola music composed by Hendrik Hofmeyr, Allan Stephenson, Monthati Masebe, Priaulx Rainier, John Joubert and Suradran Reddy.
Louise is a proud member of the Ubuntu Ensemble, an all South African chamber music group with Andre Swanepoel, Claudia Dehnke and Pieter Schoemann (violins), Rudi de Groote, Abel Selaocoe and Elliott Bailey (cellos), Leon Bosch (double bass) and Tessa Uys (piano). Ubuntu have been involved with the “African Concert Series” since 2020 premiering new and lesser known works by African composers. A highlight was a Wigmore Hall concert in May 2023, with another to follow in July 2024. The Ubuntu Ensemble have recently given world premieres of works by the late Peter Klatzow, David Earl and the "African Suite" by Fela Sowande (arr. Robert Matthew Walker for quintet.
Louise has also been invited to lead the viola section of the Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra for tours of South Africa with Marin Allsop and Joseph Young and will be returning at the end of 2024 for the next tour.
Louise’s obsession with the viola music of Paul Hindemith has led her to play concerts and give talks across the world promoting his music. This includes Hindemith’s Kuhhirtenturm in Frankfurt and the Konservatorium in Amsterdam as part of Nobuko Imai’s Hindemith Festival in 2021.
Practice and learning are part of Louise’s everyday life and she loves scales, exploring different study methods and learning the hundreds of pieces of repertoire that her students are all furiously practicing. Louise loves to read, listen and develop further ideas about baroque, classical and every style open to the performer and she is utterly transfixed on sound, a fluid left hand and the ability to punctuate and nuance with the bow. She is lucky to play on the most beautiful 1890 Sartory, Noel Burke, Fetique and Andreas Grütter baroque bows that helps ignite her imagination and inspiration.
In 2020 Louise commissioned a series of 10 pieces from the South African composer Monthati Masebe - a tribute to each of the 10 Rivonia Trialists (1963-4). “Trials that Trail” remembers these men that sacrificed their freedom in the struggle against “apartheid” in South Africa. On 23 July 2020 the last of the Rivonia Trialists, Andrew Mlangeni passed away at the age of 95.
Before moving to Birmingham Louise was a long-term member of the Pleyel Ensemble, Yeomans String Quartet and was busy free-lancing.
Here is my article about “Trials that Trail" or click here to download
Monthati and Louise Article
