Sam Nzima for Visual Art
Sam Nzima was born in Lilydale, Mpumalanga, in 1934 and is a veteran photographer who took the famous picture of the fatally wounded Hector Pieterson on June 16 1976 during the Soweto uprisings.
During school holidays he would go to the Kruger Park and charge people to get their photographs taken. He later moved to Johannesburg, and it was here where he read the Rand Daily Mail newspaper, which sparked his interest in photojournalism. He wrote a travel story about taking a bus and sent it, with photographs, to The World, an African daily newspaper.
The editor expressed interest in Nzima’s work and asked him to work freelance for the paper. In 1968 Nzima to joined as a full-time photojournalist. On June 16 1976, Nzima took the iconic picture of Hector Pieterson and The World published the photo the next day.
As a result Nzima was forced to hide, due to harassment from the security police. He moved back to Lilydale, where he was kept under surveillance by security police.
The World was closed down by the government in 1978. The Rand Daily Mail and The Star newspapers requested that Nzima work for these publications, but he refused because of the security risk. In 1979 chief minister Hudson Ntsanwisi of the Gazankulu bantustan made Nzima a member of the legislative assembly. Today Nzima believes that through his photography he contributed a lot towards achieving democracy in our country, and his picture of Hector Pieterson has become an international symbol of the struggle for freedom in South Africa.
He is currently living in Lilydale and has served on the Lilydale Municipality Council and the Bohlabela District Council. Nzima runs a photography school and plans to build a museum and gallery in Lilydale, situated near the Kruger National Park and Sabi Sands game reserves. He also has plans to do a series of photographs under the title “South Africa today through Sam Nzima’s eyes”.
Richard Loring for Theatre
Actor, singer, director and producer Richard Loring started his career singing in the church choir at the age of seven where he gained training in eisteddfods and classical lieder. In 1962, Loring went to London to join the George Mitchell singers in the Ken Dodd Show in Manchester, followed by Oh Marry Me at the Royal Windsor Theatre, and he studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He understudied and played Hero in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Strand Theatre, and went on to play Rolf in The Sound of Music for three years at the Palace Theatre.
Other shows include Robert and Elizabeth and The Student Prince at the Cambridge Theatre and a role in Sir Richard Attenborough’s first film Oh, What a Lovely War. In 1969, Loring was invited to South Africa to play Tony in The Boyfriend and to act in West Side Story. He later performed in Lock Up Your Daughters and was the narrator in Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
In his film career, Loring starred in a vast number of films including The Winners, The Baby Game and The Gods Must Be Crazy II. Loring’s recording contract with EMI International began with Sixteen Going on Seventeen from The Sound of Music in 1966. The theme song from The Winners, Gina’s Theme, was his first hit in South Africa and its follow-up, Beautiful Children, topped the charts for 18 weeks. In 1977 at Abbey Road Studios he recorded There’ll Never Be Anyone Else But You and Wonderful Summer with Sir Cliff Richard. Richard’s LP Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat achieved platinum status.
He has starred in many TV shows and co-presented with Delia Sainsbury the live award-winning Video Two for three years. In 1983 he teamed up with production director Debbie Batzofin to produce the company Specialized Entertainment and Major Events for corporate clients. He went on to open the Sound Stage Supper Theatre in Midrand in 1989. As entertainment consultant for Gold Reef City, Loring assisted in opening two new theatres, the Globe Theatre in 2000 and the Lyric Theatre in 2007, where he co-produced the multi-award-winning productions Hairspray, Saturday Night Fever, That’ll Be The Day and Knights of Music.
While he has enjoyed much success in diverse fields of entertainment, it is probably as producer and creator of the multi-award-winning African Footprint that he is best known today, receiving standing ovations over 12 years from enthusiastic audiences around the globe. In 2012 he teamed up with business colleague Roland Seidel to open Richard’s Supper Stage in Sea Point.
After more than 52 years in the industry Loring is still performing, producing shows and consulting. He is working towards creating an African Footprint Academy – a sustainable body where highly trained cast can pass on their skills to talented young South Africans.
Richard Cock for Music
Richard Cock was born in Port Elizabeth and educated at Woodridge Preparatory School and the Diocesan College in Cape Town. He pursued his musical studies at the Cape Town College of Music, where he graduated in 1971. In 1972, he won a scholarship to the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) in England, where he was awarded several prizes and diplomas.
Cock became director of music at the Cathedral Choir School and assistant organist at Chichester Cathedral in 1978 and during his years in England he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. He returned to South Africa in 1980, and, as music director from 1991, breathed new life into the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO). His innovative spirit saw the orchestra expand its horizons with open-air events, such as the successful Emmarentia Gardens Winter Series, Musical Fireworks and Pops concerts, Music in the Zoo and tours from Cape Town to Cairo. In 1999 he left the NSO to pursue a freelance career and to stimulate music activities throughout South Africa, which he has done with marked success.
Since then he has conducted symphony, choral and many major concerts in Johannesburg and throughout southern Africa. Cock has conducted light classical concerts titled Bach to Broadway, Flights of Fantasy and Lloyd Webber and Friends, and has given concerts for children and senior citizens. He is in much demand countrywide as a conductor for the popular Last Night of the Proms concerts and Songs of Praise, to name a few.
In recent years he conducted his first full-length opera, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in Bloemfontein. Cock has toured South Africa with international musicians such as Julian Lloyd-Webber, Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell and Katherine Jenkins, and he regularly conducts Starlight Classics for Rand Merchant Bank. However, it is as a choral trainer and conductor that Cock is best known. He founded the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg and the internationally recognised Chanticleer Singers over 33 years ago. Both are recognised as leaders in their respective fields.
Cock was organist and director of music at St Mary’s Cathedral for 12 years and was elected a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music for his services to church music in South Africa. He is chairman of the Apollo Music Trust and is on the board of trustees of Business and Arts South Africa and of the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra. He is also on the artistic committee of the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. In collaboration with Florian Uhlig, he directs the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival that is held annually. He is also involved in a number of successful outreach projects in Soweto and Eldorado Park.
In May 2000, he received an honorary doctorate in music from Rhodes University, in 2012 a Parnassus Award from Stellenbosch University and in 2013 a special award from the ATKV for his 30 years of dedication to spreading the love of music in South Africa.
André P Brink for Literature
Born in Vrede in 1935, André Brink is the author of numerous plays, works of non-fiction and novels, including An Instant in the Wind, Rumours of Rain, A Dry White Season, Imaginings of Sand, The Rights of Desire, The Other Side of Silence and most recently, Philida, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012. He became the first Afrikaans writer to have a novel, Kennis van die Aand, banned by the apartheid censors in 1973.
Since then, he writes simultaneously in Afrikaans and English. He has also translated over 70 books from French, German, Spanish and English into Afrikaans as well as from Afrikaans into English. He has won the CNA Award three times, the Hertzog Prize twice, and was twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Brink is the recipient of the Prix Médicis Étranger, Premio Mondello, Monismanien Human Rights Award, the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, and the Sunday Times Fiction Award, the University of Johannesburg Prize, and the Commonwealth Literature Prize for Africa Region. In 2005, he was made Officier of the Legion of Honour by the French government. His memoir A Fork in the Road was published in 2009. His work has been translated into 36 languages. Brink is currently a professor emeritus of the University of Cape Town.
Mandie van der Spuy for Arts Advocacy
Mandie van der Spuy’s career in the arts spans a period of 35 years. She grew up in Johannesburg and Cape Town but spent the greater part of her secondary school years in Vienna, Austria.
Following her tertiary studies in South Africa she spent four years in France, first as a student at the Sorbonne and later as a translator at the South African Embassy, during which time she also worked as a freelance news correspondent. She holds a degree in languages and literature and a post-graduate degree in theatre studies from the University of Cape Town as well as a master’s degree in theatre studies and literature from the Sorbonne University, Paris.
Van der Spuy worked in the theatre industry in various capacities, starting her career in 1979 at the Market Theatre, where she was involved in theatre management, production and public relations. In 1983 she joined the Playhouse Theatre in Durban as head of publicity and public relations. She was responsible for the launch phase of the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the theatre and dance companies leading up to the official opening of the renovated theatre complex.
In 1987 she returned to Johannesburg to join the drama department of the State Theatre in Pretoria as head of marketing and publicity, followed by her appointment in 1989 as head of drama. Van der Spuy was head of arts and jazz sponsorships for the Standard Bank Group from 1992 to 2014, when she decided to step down to pursue independent interests in the arts world. She was responsible for the strategic direction, management and implementation of the bank’s arts, culture and jazz programmes.
As a long-standing supporter of the arts, Standard Bank’s main sponsorship portfolio during that period included the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, the Standard Bank Young Artist Awards, the National Schools’ Festival, the bank’s Corporate Art Collection and African Art Collection, the Standard Bank Gallery, with an annual programme of major South African and international exhibitions, a series of jazz festivals, as well as the heritage project called the Paleontological Scientific Trust.
In 2007 the French government bestowed a Chevalier Award of the National Order of Merit on her for her contribution to the promotion of cultural exchange between France and South Africa through her role in the presentation of various cultural projects, with special emphasis on the major art exhibitions presented at the Standard Bank Gallery and Iziko South African National Gallery such as Picasso, Chagall and Miro.
Van der Spuy serves on the boards of several arts organisations such as the artistic committees for the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, and Business and Arts South Africa; the Standard Bank Art Advisory Committee; the Gerard Sekoto Foundation; the Hermanus FynArts Festival; and is the chairman of the Friends of Institut Francais South Africa Committee.