Reddam House Durbanville’s piano prodigy, Qden Blaauw (Grade 11) has taken first place in the prestigious Yamaha Scholarship programme for 2020/2021, which focused on the piano as the instrument category of choice. Blaauw’s prize is over R14,000 to help him further his music studies.
Blaauw started playing the piano when he was eight. He says he had heard pianists performing and decided to “give it a try”. His musical gift was then encouraged, and he joined Reddam House Durbanville in Grade 8 on a part scholarship, which was awarded to him in line with the school’s philosophy to nurture arts and culture talent in their students.
The 2020 Yamaha Scholarship programme was for the first time conducted online due to the global Covid-19 restrictions, and attracted entries from Gulf Cooperation Council states, the Middle East, West Asia, and Africa.
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According to Yamaha, “The competition presented extremely high standards across all regions, with the South African entrants ranking highly among the finalists.” South Africa was awarded two first place positions – to Blaauw, a student at the Shane Goodall Piano Studio, whose audition repertoire included Joseph Haydn’s Sonata in C Major and Fredric Chopin’s Etude Opus 10, nos 5 and 9; and John Smith, also from Cape Town, who’s taught by Erina Westgarth-Taylor.
Barry Nieuwoudt, Reddam House Durbanville’s Executive Head of School, says the school has been extremely proud to be a part of Blaauw’s brilliant progress as a world-class pianist for over three years. “We constantly strive to ensure that we provide a environment for children with talent in the arts, music, and drama to excel, and we’ve celebrated Qden’s long list of remarkable accomplishments, awards, performances at major concerts, and importantly, his ever-growing skill and his immense passion for classical piano.”
