Highlights

Alumni Success Stories

Simon Vander Plaetse

Belgium born Simon Vander Plaetse started as a 10 a year-old with piano and guitar at the Arts Academy. At the age of 14 he achieved the ABRSM Guitar Grade 8, Piano Grade 7 and Music Theory Grade 6 – all with distinctions. He was accepted at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel when his family moved to Switzerland in 2015 where he completed his BMus. Subsequently he has achieved a MMus Cum Laude at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in early music performance in guitar. He has been accepted to start with a second Master at the Schola Cantorum from September 2022 on the theorbo. He is part of the performance group Trio Aido, performing extensively in Europe and did a resoundingly successful concert tour to Japan in 2023.

Simon Vander Plaetse

Werner Stander

Werner Stander

“I learnt at Ladybird to seize opportunities offered by being disciplined, keeping a continuous positive perspective and staying motivated. This empowered me for my career in the music industry.”

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Emily Dangwa

“I don’t know of any rural place in South Africa where you can learn music, art and drama under ‘one umbrella’ from the age of four to adults, on a pre-tertiary level. The place is unique.”

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Emily Dangwa

Katleho Mothae

Katleho Mothae

“We’re an arts family…”

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Werner Stander

Born in South Africa, Werner started his music learning career at the age of 14 and was one of the first students to enroll when the Arts Academy opened its doors in 2003. He achieved the ABRSM Piano Grade 7 and ABRSM Music Theory Grade 6 levels, within a short span of four years, to be able to study a degree in music at a university of his choice. At age 15 he started conducting under the mentorship of Ronél Henning and took to stage with the Ladybrand High School Choir to win an A+ in the Free State Eisteddfod in 2005.

From 2006 to 2010 he seized all the opportunities offered to him to further his performance development. He started conducting the Cantu Maluti Youth Choir as learning experience at the age of 16 – a chamber choir under the banner of the Arts Academy. During this time the Choir toured to Namibia, recorded two albums, featured on various SABC2s programmes and performed with the Free State Symphony Orchestra.

As director of various choirs since 2018 to date, he has toured internationally, won highest accolades in the World Choir Games 2018 and the national ATKV Applous competition. He has conducted major choral works with his choirs and the Free State Symphony Orchestra, with his oevre spanning, amongst others, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Fauré’s Requiem, Brahms’s Ein Deutches Requiem, Bach’s Jesu meine freude to Mozart’s Requiem, Spatzenmesse and Missa in honorem sanctissimae. Today, Werner holds a BMus, BMus (Hons), MMus and are busy with his PhD in choral directing.

This young and upcoming conductor is currently the director of music at Oranje Primary School for Girls and the newly appointed Director of the Bloemfontein Children’s Choir. He has been appointed at the Director of the University of the Free State Choir at the start of 2023. He has toured successfully with the Bloemfontein Childrens Choir to Belgium, Germany and France in 2022, and with the UFS Choir to Sweden in 2023.

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Katleho Mothae

Katleho is Lesotho born and started with piano and percussion at the Arts Academy at the age of 9. From 2004 to 2013, he completed his ABRSM Piano Grade 7 and Music Theory Grade 6 levels. Oher than solo-performance, he explored choral singing and later the conducting experiences offered. He toured and recorded as chorister with the Cantu Maluti Youth Choir during his time at the Arts Academy, gaining valuable performance and leadership experience. In 2013 he seized the opportunity to do a conducting internship at the Arts Academy and was the resident conductor of the Choir. From 2017 to 2021 he toured as the keyboard player with the famous African artist Tsepo Tsola. He was appointed as teacher for piano, percussion, music theory and conductor for the choir and ensembles in 2018, also resuming his further music training at the Arts Academy. He achieved the ABRSM Piano Grade 8 in 2018 and ABRSM Associated of Music (ARSM) in 2021 with distinctions. He performed at the ABRSM High Scorer’s Concert in Bloemfontein in 2021 and was selected as one of the three top scorers for his ARSM in South Africa to participate in a mini-concert tour to the Western Cape in 2022. He is currently working towards an ABRSM Licentiate in Piano at Ladybird, and aspires to do a BMus thereafter at a university of his choice.

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Emily Dangwa

Emily is of Philippine-Tanzanian origin and enrolled for vocal lessons as beginner in music at the Arts Academy at the age of 19. She completed her ABRSM Grade 8 in Solo-singing and ABRSM Grade 6 Theory of Music levels with distinction in the short time span of four years to be able to audition for tertiary music studies in opera at the University of Cape Town’s South African College of Music. During her four years at the Arts Academy, she participated in the Cantu Maluti Youth Choir and embraced all the performance opportunities offered. She toured with the Choir to Namibia in 2007 and sang in the community Festival of Carols productions with the Free State Symphony Orchestra in 2008 and 2009. At the time of her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at UCT she performed in choruses for the Arts Cape and Baxter Theatre opera productions. She sang as soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah and Fauré’s Requiem with the Free State Symphony Orchestra in 2017. Emily moved to Namibia in 2018 where she established her own ED Music Academy and production business in Windhoek. She performs extensively as soloist in Namibia, including various times with the Namibian National Symphony Orchestra, World Music Day, Confessions of a Woman at the Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre, Celebration of Namibian Stories, Miss Teen Pageants, as well as in Mozart’s Mass in C minor in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. She is also one of the adjudicators for the Voice of Namibia.

"Music performance standards are on a high enough level for me to study internationally."
- Simon Vander Plaetse

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