With the first notes of Eine Kleine Nacht Musik being played, in the midday heat, of a small Free State school hall Jacques was hooked and continues to pursue his love of fine music to this day. His exposure was enhanced by studying and playing piano and trumpet, and playing just good enough to be involved in art and musical endeavours during his school and university days.

Life then took him into the business development which demanded daily early mornings and late nights for some 30 years before retiring to George which opened the opportunity to indulge in his musical interest via the George Musical Society as a committee member responsible for sponsorship.

Jacques serves as the Chairman of George Music Society from March 2017.

Henk’s interest in classical music dates back to when he retired and moved to George, as up and till then he had been too busy with other hobbies and pastimes. When at high school he became a modern jazz fan, which is still his main music interest.

Henk joined the George Music Society soon after arriving in George and went through a steep learning curve when attending the concerts that were organised. After a number of years he decided to join the committee and was asked to do be responsible for concert liaison, as well as being the vice-chair for the past 4 years.

Henk says it is a very interesting job with many facets and he especially enjoys meeting the artistes, both local and overseas, who perform for GMS.

Sandra started music lessons at the age of six with Mrs Nellie du Toit, mother of the SA opera singer Nellie du Toit in Centurion. In high school she carried on with music as a subject until standard 8. She performed in many Eisteddfods doing singing, piano and drama as well as in revues and choirs. Her love for the fine arts made her choose art as a school subject rather than music and she obtained a Fine Arts degree from the University of Pretoria after school.

She worked for six years for the Foreign Guest Section of the Department of Foreign Affairs. After the death of her husband in a car accident she moved to George where she started a family with her second husband. She was the owner of a Montessori PreSchool for many years where the children were introduced to music and art from a very young age. Sandra presented many concerts creating the costumes, choreography and music and stage décor.

Sandra’s daughter and son excelled in music. They both play several instruments and sing and took part in many revues, competitions and Eisteddfods. Both were members of the South Cape Children’s Choir and her daughter Suan Steyn, was the youngest child to ever win the senior trophy at the Young Musicians Competition. Sandra met the music teachers of George during this time and has a great admiration for the wonderful dedication of the teachers and inspiration they bring to their students.

Sandra joined the GMS committee about ten years ago, when everything was still done by hand. Posters were hand-drawn and advertising boards were also quite primitive. Newspaper articles had to be delivered to their offices by hand. It has been her pleasure to help the committee modernize and improve the image of the society. GMS is now using the latest technology affordable to the society to create beautiful art works with our artistic abilities. Sandra’s husband, Steve is fortunately a graphic designer and artist, and with his skill the advertising is slick and professional and we have beautiful colour banners and posters that are distributed in George and surrounding areas. Together they have also created unique trophies for the Young Musicians Competition.

Sandra also handled for the most part, the liaison with the Media such as writing articles for the George Herald, Die Burger and others. She also created the George Music Society Facebook page to share information regarding GMS concerts as well as other interesting items. She also created the Young Musicians Competition Group page for Facebook. Often people ask for references for artists to perform at weddings and other events and we then do our best to connect them to the appropriate artists.

Sandra has organized events such as the Sunset Buffet and more recently the Bay Leaf Café function, where GMS was promoted to a group of mostly non-members of the Society. She organized refreshments for the audiences in various venues for many years, and has always been involved in decorating the theatres with flowers for the concerts. Sandra has been involved in outreach programmes through the years and has taken musicians to Moreson Youth Centre, Imizamo Yethu High school, Life Community services, old age homes and other institutions. An Art Exhibition that was organized at a concert once was an interesting project that could easily be incorporated at concerts in the future.

The Young Musicians Competition (YM) arranged by the George Music Society is one of the music highlights in the school calendar of George. Many of the previous participants became successful musicians. Sandra has been involved with YM for many years, and she says it has been her pleasure to be the YM organizer since 2014, having taken over from Martha Avierinos. YM has been developed into a very successful competition where numerous trophies and prizes are awarded.

Sandra believes that the George Music Society creates opportunity for musicians to showcase their talents and at the same time make sure that the best possible music of the highest standard is available to the people of George.

Don has been the efficient Treasurer of GMS since mid 2011. He is a man of few words, but works quietly in the background, keeping as tight a reign on the purse as is required to allow for growth in the society.

Cathy’s love for music began as a teenager. One Sunday the minister approached her as a member of the youth asking if she would join the choir. Her first solo turned out to be Good King Wenceslas. She sang the young boy’s part, and once she noticed the congregation, her volume lowered and the organist lowered her playing volume. By the end of the song it was just a squeak. She thought it would never get to the end! At school, doing French History her teacher played some music by a French Composer of that period, and from that day she was hooked. She would save pocket money and go to the local record shop and ask for French period classics, run home and play them and conduct her imaginary orchestra.

Her hobbies are still French History and music. The owner of the shop then, noticing she enjoyed the music introduced her to other composers, the first being Beethoven. Cathy would go every week giving him half her pocket money until she had paid for the particular record.

Moving to Durban, Cathy was able to attend concerts in the City Hall. Returning to Johannesburg about 10 years later she would go to the lunch time concerts on a Wednesday at the City Hall there. She eventually moved to Johannesburg city centre and worked at the SABC. Because of her love of music, Cathy distributed notices asking for people interested in starting a choir, the idea being to sing the classics, religious and traditional music. She received a phone call from a producer who told her he also wanted to start a choir to which she replied that there were 74 various people already from the TV section interested and they could start immediately. His name was Tulisizwe who had a Masters degree in music. Needless to say he then handled the singing. He was surprised to find out that Cathy cannot read music. Cathy has been invited to the 20 year anniversary celebration of the choir next year.

Cathy moved back to her parents home in George and it was then that she met Tant Anna du Toit, a founder member of George Music Society, and became a member of GMS herself. Cathy joined the committee in 2015 and was responsible for membership, before assisting Sandra with media advertising.

Music has been in Peter’s blood since an early age. He was fortunate to have a primary school teacher who had a passion for all things musical, who taught him and others to read music at an early age and to play the recorder. He was born and raised on the Isle of Wight in England. His parents encouraged him by buying a piano, and he had classical lessons up until the age of 14. He wasn’t proficient, but the seed to love good music was sown. At 15, Peter was a founder member of an amateur dramatic society and sang in numerous shows & pantomimes that were staged over the next 7 years.

Then there was a gap of several years as his engineering career took shape, and in 1972 he emigrated to South Africa. Within only 3 months of arriving, Peter auditioned for a part in an amateur satirical musical farce in Pretoria, to be followed with several similar productions in the following years. He became a member of the service organisation, Round Table in 1977, and every November the joint Pretoria Tables staged a satirical review as a fund-raiser, which he took part in over the next 6 years. Also in 1977, he joined the SABC Choir under direction of Richard Cock, and remained a member until 1984.

In 1982, Peter was invited to join the Jubilee Morris Men, a group of traditional English folk dancers based in Jo’burg/Pretoria. This group, although disbanded now, performed these ancient fertility dances around the country at various fetes and social gatherings. It formed the nucleus of his and his wife Thelma’s social life for some 15 years. During this time they also sang in the church choir in Irene, Centurion.

Peter was also a member for several years to an all-male singing group called ‘Ma’s Boy’s’ in Pretoria. Well known Pretoria music teacher, Margaret Rodseth started the group back in the 1960’s, and still keeps the ‘Boys’ under control. Singing mostly for their own pleasure but also giving occasional performances at retirement homes and the like.

On moving to Wilderness in January 2010, Peter soon made contact with the George Music Society and was coerced by Martha Avierinos, (to whom he is distantly related) to join the committee. 2016 was his 6th year as chairperson, working with a competent committee. This provided the chance to meet and interact with the many musicians who GMS book for concerts. Peter says that it has been a rewarding experience to be involved with the Society and to work with dedicated people, some of whom have been involved with GMS for many years.

Peter has been involved at committee level of all of the groups & societies he has been involved with since his teen years. His management style is one of delegation and engendering inclusive team participation.

As a youngster, Koos has studied percussion under "Snowy" Edwards who was the principal percussionist for the Durban Philharmonic Orchestra in the early 80's. He also sang in his church choir for a short period before moving to George in 1993.

He enjoyed choir singing so much that he auditioned for the George Male Choir in the same year and has been singing under the directorship of well known concert pianist/choral conductor/composer Dalene Brits for 18 years.

In 2006 he joined the South Cape Symphony Orchestra founded and at that time conducted by well known local flautist Kalene Roux as percussionist and later on became chairman of the orchestra.

As amateur musician and music lover, he also joined the George Music Society and has been a committee member since 2017.

Ruan studied under Liesl Stoltz at the University of Cape Town, receiving his BMus in performance and Orchestral studies in 2015. He has performed under the baton of respected conductors such as Victor Yampolsky, Arjan Tien, Bernhard Gueller and Daniel Boico.

He has performed with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra as soloist and played as the co-principal of the Cape Philharmonic Youth Orchestra from 2012 to 2015. He is currently teaching flute and subject music at Outeniqua High School along with conducting the Instrumental ensemble of the school.

Enthusiastic, prolific and endlessly creative, Beatrice is a versatile singer with a voice range of nearly four octaves. She is passionate about music and is as much at home behind her guitar as behind a microphone. She is also a talented musical theatre actress. Apart from being an acclaimed singer, she is also an accomplished writer, having had several of her poems published in South Africa.

Her first public performance as singer was at the age of seven when she awed the audience with her mature vocal abilities. Through the years she has sung with various choirs and choruses in theatres around South Africa. Her repertoire ranges from classical to indie-rock, but her favourite genres are blues, rock and swing jazz. She has done solo performances in pubs and at private functions, festivals, cabarets, and also with local and international bands. Bea has done various theatre productions and has also performed with some well-known local and international artists like Francois Hayes, Magna Carta, Andrew Young, Farryl Purkiss, Cyril Viljoen, Arlyn, Miles Sievwright, Gaston and Tian Nienaber.

This driven, passionate and talented singer has a song inside her that she’s burning to share with the world...

As a child, I learnt to play the violin (after the obligatory blockflute/recorder and basic piano education) and took music as my subject of choice into matric (Abitur) in Germany. I had always loved classical music, collected a large number of classical music records and attended as many concerts, ballet and opera performances as possible, first in Germany and then since 1968 in Johannesburg and Pretoria. I have three sisters, all playing a numbers of instruments, two playing in orchestras and one a previous music teacher and still an active cross-flute performer.

For a long time, I was one of the patrons of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Choir and supported the choir as well as orchestral concerts under Richard Cock. During that time, I established that the musical events that achieved most support were those that the audience could feel most "at home" with - Christmas Specials, Easter concerts (Passion, etc.), Gilbert & Sullivan, etc., in other words the "lighter" classical music, popular works that appealed to the broader audience.

After having sold my publishing company in Johannesburg, and no longer lecturing at universities, I recently moved to George, where I can now combine my love for classical music in the beautiful setting of George with my passion for helping aspiring PhDs and Masters attain their degrees.