You have two opportunities to see Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in Cape Town.
At 19:00 on Saturday 29 February at the Fugard Theatre, Dame Kiri, will talk about everything from singing at the wedding of Charles and Diana and her extraordinary career to her foundation for young singers and South African opera stars. The interview will be co-hosted by CTO Artistic Director Matthew Wild and CTO Board Vice-Chair and Cape Talk presenter Africa Melane. Tickets are available at the Fugard Theatre.
With over 40 years of performances Dame Kiri Te Kanawa brings her mastery of the operatic art form to an evening of masterclasses with students from the University of Cape Town Opera School and Cape Town Opera Young Artists Programme at 19:30 on Tuesday 3 March at the Baxter and tickets for this event is available from Webtickets.
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa
When she was six years old Kiri stood on a chair and sang into the microphone of a provincial radio station. Twenty years later, international audiences were standing up from their chairs and giving ovations to one of the most beautiful soprano voices on the world music scene.
Dame Kiri unhesitatingly credits her parents for providing the bringing-up which helped make her a star: an elegant Maori father who valued nature and outdoor activity; and a well organised mother with notable determination – who was also a capable pianist and knew talent when she heard it.
Besides conquering opera houses and concert halls on every continent, her prodigious recording output includes Christmas music ; classic and folk songs ; oratorio ; concerts with the world’s principal orchestras, seventeen major operas ; music theatre ; and offerings from composers including George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Paul McCartney.
Twice her recordings have appeared on the UK top ten best-seller list: “Songs of the Auvergne” and the Rugby World Cup theme song “The World in Union.”
Kiri was created a Dame in 1982, and has been awarded both the Order of Australia and the Order of New Zealand. She is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, was presented with the International Achievement Summit award by Dame Julie Andrews, and has been inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. Honorary doctorates have been awarded to Dame Kiri from both Oxford and Cambridge and nine other universities.
Well aware that the road towards professional singing is a hard one, she feels a strong duty to pass on her experience to younger singers. With international master-classes, personal mentoring, and training sessions, her Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation guides and mentors students of promise who show a strong attitude to succeed.
With the release of her latest recording, WAIATA, Dame Kiri marks the fiftieth year of her recording career and her third all-Maori offering. Kiri was the first NZ artist to receive a Gold Disc awarded by the NZ Phonographic Federation. Four decades and forty recordings later, she received the British Classical Recording industry’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
In between her commitments to a demanding 2013 international recital schedule Dame Kiri has found time to make a sparkling appearance in the upcoming new season of “Downton Abbey”, which screened here in New Zealand in the spring.
Dame Kiri celebrated her 70th birthday on March 6th 2014 with a return appearance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as the Duchess of Crakentorp in Donizetti’s “Daughter of the Regiment.”
These evenings with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa are presented by Cape Town Opera in collaboration with the New Zealand High Commission, the Fugard Theatre and UCT Opera School.
WHAT, WHERE & WHEN: In Converstion with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa – at 19:00 on Saturday 29 February at the Fugard Theatre. Master Class with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa – 19:30 on Tuesday 3 March at the Baxter Cocnert Hall.
