Hendrik Hofmeyr

Hendrik Hofmeyr
Birth nameHendrik Pienaar Hofmeyr
Born (1957-11-20) 20 November 1957 (age 66)
Cape Town, Cape Province, Union of South Africa
GenresOpera, contemporary classical music
OccupationComposer

Hendrik Pienaar Hofmeyr (born 20 November 1957) is a South African composer.[1][2][3] Born in Cape Town, he furthered his studies in Italy during 10 years of self-imposed exile as a conscientious objector.[4] While there, he won the South African Opera Competition with The Fall of the House of Usher. He also received the annual Nederburg Prize for Opera for this work subsequent to its performance at the State Theatre in Pretoria in 1988. In the same year, he obtained first prize in an international competition in Italy with music for a short film by Wim Wenders. He returned to South Africa in 1992, and in 1997 won two major international composition competitions, the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition of Belgium (with 'Raptus' for violin and orchestra) and the first edition of the Dimitris Mitropoulos Competition in Athens (with 'Byzantium' for high voice and orchestra). His 'Incantesimo' for solo flute was selected to represent South Africa at the ISCM World Music Days in Croatia in 2005. In 2008 he was honoured with a Kanna award by the Kleinkaroo National Arts Festival. He is currently Professor and Head of Composition and Theory at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town, where he obtained a DMus in 1999.[5]

Hofmeyr has completed more than a hundred commissioned works for, amongst others, the British duo Nettle&Markham, the Hogarth Quartet, the Vancouver Recital Society, the Latvian youth choir Kamēr, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the South African Music Rights Organisation, the Foundation for the Creative Arts and the Cape Performing Arts Board.

  1. ^ "Hendrik Hofmeyr turns 50 | Faculty of Humanities". www.humanities.uct.ac.za. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  2. ^ "Hendrik Hofmeyr | Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  3. ^ Giraudet, Jean-Paul (19 August 2008). "Hendrik Hofmeyr". www.classical-composers.org (in French). Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  4. ^ "Hofmeyr, Hendrik". University of Pretoria. 26 July 2008. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
  5. ^ "Emeritus Professor Hendrik Hofmeyr". University of Cape Town.