Ben Schoeman
The South African pianist and Steinway Artist Ben Schoeman is a senior lecturer in music at the University of Pretoria. He has won major prizes, including the first grand prize in the 11th UNISA International Piano Competition, Pretoria (2008), the gold medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition, London (2009), the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music (2011) and the contemporary music prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, USA (2013). In 2016, he was awarded the H Rupert Prize from the South African Academy of Arts and Sciences.He has given solo, chamber music and concerto performances in such prestigious concert halls as the Wigmore, Barbican, Cadogan and Queen Elizabeth Halls in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Gulbenkian Auditorium in Lisbon, Teatro del Giglio in Lucca, Teatro Vittoria in Turin, the Durban and Cape Town City Halls and the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest. He has performed at many international festivals such as City of London, Edinburgh, Chester, Enescu Bucharest, Grahamstown and Ottawa.Ben Schoeman studied in Pretoria, Imola, Florence and London with Michel Dalberto, Louis Lortie, Ronan O’Hora, Boris Petrushansky, Joseph Stanford and Eliso Virsaladze. In 2016, he obtained a doctorate in music from City, University of London and the Guildhall School of Music
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Thesis Chapters by Ben Schoeman
A study of the composer’s engagement with indigenous Southern African musical and cultural elements forms a substantial part of the second and fourth chapters of this thesis. The realisation of technical elements in Grové’s piano music for concert performers as well as less advanced players is discussed in the third chapter, with reference to the formulations on the didactics of piano playing by pedagogues such as Heinrich Neuhaus, Béla Bartók, József Gát and Geőrgy Sándor. Aspects of finger technique, articulation and pedalling are the main points of investigation. In the outer chapters, Grové is placed within the historical context of piano tuition in South Africa and his position within the national canon of art music is considered and contextualised.
Papers by Ben Schoeman
A study of the composer’s engagement with indigenous Southern African musical and cultural elements forms a substantial part of the second and fourth chapters of this thesis. The realisation of technical elements in Grové’s piano music for concert performers as well as less advanced players is discussed in the third chapter, with reference to the formulations on the didactics of piano playing by pedagogues such as Heinrich Neuhaus, Béla Bartók, József Gát and Geőrgy Sándor. Aspects of finger technique, articulation and pedalling are the main points of investigation. In the outer chapters, Grové is placed within the historical context of piano tuition in South Africa and his position within the national canon of art music is considered and contextualised.