Apartheid's discord resolves into beautiful harmony for 74-year-old pianist Reggie

When Reggie Dreyer sits down to play a Mozart concerto with a Cape Town symphony orchestra in March‚ there won’t be a dry eye in the house.

As an 18-year-old piano prodigy‚ Dreyer auditioned to play the same piece with the Cape Philharmonic in 1960. “While my audition was a success‚ the laws of the time were against me‚” he said.

Because he was coloured‚ the orchestra was unable to offer Dreyer an engagement. But the 74-year-old auditioned again last year‚ with the encouragement of his church minister.

Orchestra CEO Louis Heyneman told weekendspecial.co.za: “After waiting 50 years‚ not only was he brave enough to audition the same concerto he played then – Mozart K 488 – but for a panel that included the CPO’s resident conductor‚ Brandon Phillips and UCT’s Franklin Larey (one of South Africa’s leading pianists).

“After all these years he could still play his favourite concerto‚ and well enough to succeed. We soon asked him to make his debut with the CPO. We are grateful to Artscape‚ which embraced the idea wholeheartedly and made the transport and tuning of a piano possible.”

Artscape CEO Marlene le Roux said: “This is a story about determination and our wonderful country and Louis Heyneman’s belief in Reggie Dreyer. Artscape’s theatre doors remain open to patrons and stages open to performers who were denied access in the past.”

Dreyer‚ who went on to spend his life as a music teacher‚ will perform Piano Concerto no 23 in A at the orchestra’s free lunch-hour concert in the Artscape chandelier foyer on March 7.

Also on the bill will be 12-year old Qden Blaauw who will play the slow movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 21 in C‚ known as Elvira Madigan. Speaking to weekendspecial.co.za‚ Dreyer said that as the second-youngest of 13 children‚ “and the one on whom my parents depended”‚ he was unable to go overseas to study.

“I don’t regret this at all. After all‚ I might then have never returned to South Africa. I went to the College of Music‚ successfully obtained a licentiate from Trinity and a BMus from Unisa and went into teaching‚” he said.

Dreyer retired as a full-time teacher in 1993 but works part-time in choir training and jazz at South Peninsula High School in Diep River.