Péter Louis van Dijk, narrator
John Eagar, baritone
Xandi van Dijk, boy 

CAPAB Orchestra
Stewart Kershaw, conductor

Live at the Grahamstown Festival, 1990

The Selfish Giant

Susa Ninna
Peter Louis van Dijk, Arr. B.Bus
Vocaal Ensemble Kerkrade en Helicon
22-12-12

018-Susa Ninna

Péter Louis van Dijk is an internationally performed composer resident in South Africa. His works include Horizons, written for and recorded by The King’s Singers, the string quartet "iinyembezi" and more recently the opera, Mandela Trilogy, performed to critical acclaim at the Welsh National Opera in 2012, in Melbourne, Australia (2013) and at the Deutsches Theater in Munich in 2014. Further performances are scheduled for New York, Chicago and several European cities between 2015-17.  Other compositions include "the song the san women sang" for the Mainzer Klavierduo, Magnificat for the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Choir and Sontonga Quartet and Windy City Songs for soloists, double choir and orchestra, commissioned by the Chicago Children’s Choir for their 50th Anniversary Concert at the Lyric Opera, Chicago (2007).  

Van Dijk has composed five operas, including Out of Time (commisioned for the University of Cape Town’s 150th Anniversary Celebrations, 2010), two ballets, chamber music, several educational and choral-orchestral works such as The Musicians of Bremen, Follow that Flute!, the cantata The Selfish Giant (most recently performed at the Stellenbosch Chamber Music Festival with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu as the Narrator), Youth Requiem, a Te Deum and several orchestral arrangements of traditional African songs such as Bawo Thixo Somandla, Ingoma kaNtsikana and others. Following the success of Horizons, Van Dijk’s choral compositions, such as the Bushman-inspired San Gloria (performed at Europe Cantat in Turin, Italy 2013), Bells (commissioned by the Chicago Children’s Choir), Cessate, Magnificat and Chariots (jointly commissioned by the Texas State Chorale and the NMMU Choir) have gained considerable popularity. Chariots is programmed for the Texas All-State Choir (2015).

Péter Louis van Dijk has more than a dozen CDs to his credit, including recordings for the RCA Victor Red Seal and Marco Polo labels. He is published by Oxford University Press, Hal Leonard, Accolade Musikverlag and Prestige. 

Dr van Dijk has lectured at the University of Cape Town, the University of the Western Cape, was Senior Lecturer in Composition and Musicology at Rhodes University and currently teaches Composition and Orchestration plus assisting his wife, Junita Lamprecht-Van Dijk teaching graduate choral conducting at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth.
Van Dijk has conducted most major South African orchestras, given workshops and performances across South Africa, in the USA with the CCC and the CYSO (Chicago), at Texas State University (San Marcos TX) and in China at the University of Technology, Beijing.

The Selfish Giant

Péter Louis van Dijk

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