Peter Klatzow
 Peter and his piano
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Biography
Peter Klatzow was born in Springs, Transvaal, in 1945. After his school years at St Martin's School, Johannesburg, he spent a year teaching music and Afrikaans at the then newly established Waterford School, Swaziland.
The award of the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) scholarship for composers in 1964 took him to the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied composition with Bernard Stevens, piano with Kathleen Long, and orchestration with Gordon Jacob. In that year he won several of the College composition prizes as well as the Royal Philharmonic prize for composition, which was open to any Commonwealth composer under 30. He spent the following years in Italy and Paris, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger. He remained on very cordial terms with her until the time of her death.
Returning to South Africa in 1966, he worked at the SABC in Johannesburg as a music producer, and in 1973 was appointed to the University of Cape Town, where he is presently Professor in Composition. In 1986 he was elected to the rank of Fellow of the University of Cape Town for "having performed original distinguished academic work of such quality as to merit special recognition." In 2002 he was awarded the distinguished
Molteno Gold Medal from the Cape Tercentenary Foundation for lifetime services to music.
He was awarded his DMus for published work in Composition, in 1999, and in 2007 he was appointed Director of the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town.
One of the few South African composers to achieve international recognition, Peter Klatzow has won prizes in Spain, Toronto, and Stroud and his works have been performed in various European centres and in the United States. In South Africa he was awarded the prestigious Helgard Steyn prize worth R45, 000 for his piano suite From the Poets.
His major works include a full length ballet on Hamlet, for which he was given a special Nederburg award for the music, scores for ballets on Drie Diere and Vier Gebede, and Concertos for various solo instruments; piano, clarinet, two for organ, marimba, and a double Concerto for flute and marimba which was recently performed at Yale. His Prayers and Dances of Praise from Africa was introduced at the Three Choirs Festival, Worcester, UK. 1997 saw the first performances of two new works; his 3rd String Quartet (commissioned by the Lake District Summer Music Festival for the Chilingirian Quartet) and Return of the Moon, a cycle for voices and marimba, commissioned by the King's Singers for themselves and Evelyn Glennie. They have successfully toured this work in the UK and the USA.
Recent stylistic changes have seen a reversion to a more tonal idiom, which is particularly clear in his Prayers and Dances of Praise from Africa. Recent commissions include a a set of Concert etudes for violin, cello and piano, commissioned for the Broadwood Glories of the Keyboard Competition in Manchester, Oct/Nov 1999, The World of Paul Klee (III), composed for the opening of the new Paul Klee Centre in Berne, Switzerland, and a celebratory Te Deum for choir, organ and orchestra, commissioned for a special service celebrating the 100th anniversary of St George's Cathedral, Cape Town.
His discography includes recordings of his piano music, played by Jill Richards, the Mass for Choir, Horn, Marimba and Strings, String Quartet, Chamber Concerto for 7, Piano Concerto, From the Poets, an RCA issue of Return of the Moon and two CDs in 2006; Towards the Light which features his choral music and Myths, Magic and Marimbas, works for choir, marimba and orchestra. |
