SA Youth Orchestra:Lubner Soloist Competition

What would the world be without music? I don’t even want to imagine it. Never in my life have I experienced such beautiful, elegant, soulful, capturing, breath taking…(I can go on for ever) performance. I am a big fan of classical music and in my 5 years in Johannesburg, have attended various types of classical music concerts; however none has ever left me breath taken as this one.

It was on the night of the 27th June that I went to the Linder Auditorium to attend the Lubner Soloist Competition. Eight young hopefuls participated in this event, after having being selected from a first round. Obviously the kids are very talented to have made it this far, however there is just one girl who stood out for me. Charilee Adams. I have to say, I have never managed to stay awake through a Bach Marimba piece for twenty minutes until that day. I was taken away from the first time the sticks hit the instrument. Never had I seen such soulful playing. I felt such emotion as she continued to soar through the piece, while swaying left and right in gentle but fluid, ballet like movements. You could almost feel the music coming to live and touching every soul present there. You could literally feel her breathing through the phrases and just allowing what was inside of her to come out. One would normally not expect percussion music to be so emotional, so soulful, so, so, so....................I'm lost for words.

The beauty of the sound of the instrument simply complimented this young’s women’s talent as it resonated every tone colour, every dynamic, every texture intended by the person playing it. I can go on forever about how great this young lady played. All I can say is thank you to the South African Youth Orchestra Foundation for giving such greatly talented young people a platform to share their gifts with the world. Charilee may not have taken the overall winner price, however, according to me, she is an overall winner (after all this is the world according to Iggy). Charie, you will go far dear. As a performer myself, I can only hope that I can one day also give such a magnificent performance, giving my audience their money’s worth.