Dear Friends,

The FOM 2016 AFS have been successfully finalised and lodged. We are now entirely up to date with SARS.

Our Soirées – August (Miss Lucienne Renaudin Vary in recital with Francois du Toit) and October (Christopher Duigan in recital) were very well appreciated by all who attended. However, tickets were a challenge to sell. it might be that Capetonians are reluctant to hear an up and coming artist, of whom they have never heard, playing an instrument that they are not familiar with. A piano recital is a much easier sell! The Table Bay Hotel is a lovely setting, with a very large venue for such functions.

The FOM GALA 2017 was presented with the CPO on Thursday 02 November in The City Hall. Maestro Bernhard Gueller was on the podium and led the CPO in a glittering account of Reznicek’s Overture to Donna Diana which was followed by internationally renowned cellist Zuill Bailey playing, superbly, both the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No.1, Op.33 and Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs. The interval was followed by Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43 in which the CPO excelled.

Despite Gala ticket prices being kept the same as 2016 the selling was tough going. We had extensive and very professional help from Shirley Gueller in marketing the event where ever possible. The exercise taught us the difficulty in reaching an audience in the new age of social media, where there is no longer one central repository of “news” such as a daily paper. What the right combination of artistic reputation, ticket price and instrument is, we have not completely determined for our audiences. The orchestra has a similar challenge. We cannot afford to pay, and the audience is not willing to support the cost of a world class artist, so we have to bring in up
and coming artists, with the difficulty of having to “sell” this person. We need the FOM audience to trust the judgement of the CPO and ourselves that we will not let them down in terms of artistic enjoyment even if the name is not a household one.

We sincerely hope that the 2018 AGM, soirees (more about this to follow on pages 2 and 3 of this Newsletter) and Gala will be fully supported by FOM members! It is vitally important for FOM members to recognise that we need to give back to the CPO to thank them for the extra 10% subscriber discount benefit they give to FOM members.

Our Section 18A application, submitted again in July 2017, was approved on 10 November 2017.

This means that all donations in excess of R100 to FOM made after 10 November 2017 are tax deductible in the hands of the donors – – provided the donors explicitly state that their donations must be used for music education purposes only.

FOM will see to it that we sponsor, on your behalf:

  1. Financially challenged Music students for their tuition fees and study costs;
  2. The Franschhoek Mountain Chamber Music Festival which is an annual week’s music education culminating in a chamber recital;
  3. To fund students to attend master classes and performances at the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival;
  4. To fund the music education of disadvantaged youngsters in Klawer and the development of a youth orchestra in Bloekombos;
  5. The Masidlale Music Education Project of the CPO;
  6. The Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Development and Education Programme

To give back, we are issuing a challenge to all FOM members to consider a monthly debit order to FOM for music education. A contribution of R100/month will assist greatly. Imagine if 100 members contributed we would generate R120,000, half of what we were able to give to our sponsored students this year. Please use surname/mus/educ as your debit order beneficiary reference. We will issue you a tax certificate after end February for your previous year’s total debit order/donation value.

We will allocate the entire value of each donation to music education. All donors will be recognised on our website and in all of our programmes for soirees and the gala.

We are delighted to announce that The Rolf Nussbaum Foundation has once again supported FOM and donated R200 000.00 to our fund raising efforts. We thank them sincerely for their consistent support.

The FOM committee is preparing a funding request submission to the Community Chest for consideration for 2018.

We will highly value any suggestions and introductions our members can make to other sources of corporate funding.

We are incredibly excited to announce that FOM has received a very significant sponsorship from Bowman’s Law who are generously funding 3 FOM soirees and our annual quiz in 2018 which will be presented in their luxurious auditorium on the 11th floor of their head office at 22 Bree Street, Cape Town. Free secure parking is available in the building to all FOM soiree and quiz patrons.

Louis Heyneman, CPO CEO, has inspected the premises and approved of the acoustics for recitals. We are now concluding the artists and programmes for 2018.

Bowman’s Law is also providing full Pro Bono legal services to FOM including the drawing up of all performance contracts. We acknowledge their generosity with gratitude.

Our student funding obligations to the value of R250 000.00 for 2017 have all been honoured. The FOM committee is delighted to announce it will sponsor the CPYO to the value of R150 000.00 for 2017. This sponsorship will include the sum of R52 000.00 to finance the restoration of musical instruments for the Masidale Music Education Project.

Our current membership is 252 paid up members single and family. We are focussing on getting this up to the levels of previous years;the economic recession is certainly being felt Unfortunately, Guy Carter has resigned the role of Treasurer and Karinina Ingwersen has given notice that she will resign as Secretary shortly. Dave van Reenen, who had stepped down as Treasurer earlier this year has kindly stepped back into the role of temporary Treasurer. Shirley Parkfelt has also given notice that she will be stepping down from the FOM Committee in December 2017. So we are on a drive to find a new secretary and a new treasurer with the time and knowledge to run FOM books – may we ask all FOM members for their assistance in helping us to find these skills – perhaps a senior accounting student or a retired accountant please? It will help us to take FOM to the next level.

Our 2018 draft budget was adopted at the December committee meeting.

We thank those members of FOM who supported us so graciously and generously during 2017 and we wish you all a peaceful rest, an enjoyable holiday season, a blessed and Happy Christmas, Chanukah Sameach and a successful and Happy 2018.

Yours sincerely,
Roderick Stevens
Chairman
Friends of Orchestral Music