photograph by Margrit Schmidt
Recent Reviews
Evening Standard, 29th April 2013 – Elizabeth Connell Memorial Concert,
St John’s Smith Square
” . . . there was some fine piano playing . . .
an exquisite Schubert’s G flat Impromptu by Tessa Uys . . .”
Barry Millington
Forthcoming Concerts and Adjudication
JANUARY 2020
13th Jan TESSA UYS AND BEN SCHOEMAN AT BLACKHEATH CONCERT HALLS, LONDON SE3
JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2020
19th JAN, 2nd FEB, 23rd FEB, 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd MARCH
TESSA UYS IS JURY MEMBER FOR THE 15 th SPRING GROVE INTER-SCHOOLS CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL
FEBRUARY 15th, 16th and 17th TESSA UYS, ADJUDICATOR WATFORD PIANO COMPETITION
MARCH 2020
MARCH 2nd and 3rd TESSA UYS IS JURY MEMBER FOR THE 68th ANNUAL ROYAL OVER-SEAS LEAGUE MUSIC COMPETITION, Princess Alexandra Hall, Over-Seas House, London SW1A 1LR
APRIL 2020
APRIL 22nd ST MARY’S PERIVALE: TESSA UYS AND BEN SCHOEMAN PLAY BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY NO.3 at 7.30 (St Mary’s, Perivale, Perivale Lane, Middlesex UB6 8SS)
Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform Scharwenka’s 3rd Symphony (Eroica) as part of the composer’s 250th birthday year.
APRIL 30th ROYAL OVER-SEAS LEAGUE – DUO CONCERT BY TESSA UYS AND BEN SCHOEMAN, LONDON
7.00pm Princess Alexandra Hall, Over-Seas House,London SW1A 1LR
Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform Scharwenka’s transcriptions of the 5th and 7th Symphonies as part of their celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday year.
MAY 2020
MAY 4th DUO CONCERT BY TESSA UYS AND BEN SCHOEMAN FOR VE DAY CELEBRATIONS, LONDON EC2
1.00pm St Lawrence Jewry, City of London, Guildhall Yard, London EC2 5AA
Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform Scharwenka’s transcription of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony as part of their celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday year. This concert takes place under the auspices of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
17th MAY DUO CONCERT – TESSA UYS AND BEN SCHOEMAN PLAY BEETHOVEN IN KINGSBRIDGE, DEVON
6.00pm Libertas. Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform Scharwenka’s transcription of Beethoven’s 1st and 7th Symphonies
JUNE 2020
1st JUNE TESSA UYS IS JURY MEMBER FOR ROYAL OVER-SEAS LEAGUE ANNUAL MUSIC COMPETITION GOLD MEDAL FINAL( Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London)
8th JUNE TESSA UYS SOLO RECITAL 1 pm St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard EC2 5AA
15th JUNE TESSA UYS SOLO RECITAL 1 pm St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard EC2 5AA
22nd JUNE TESSA UYS SOLO RECITAL St Lawrence Jewry 1pm, Guildhall Yard,EC2 5AA
27th JUNE DUO CONCERT BY TESSA UYS AND BEN SCHOEMAN IN HIGHGATE, N6 6BJ
7 pm Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform Scharwenka’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s 3rd and 6th Symphonies as part of their celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday year (Tickets at the door)
29th JUNE DUO CONCERT BY TESSA UYS AND BEN SCHOEMAN AT ST LAWRENCE JEWRY, LONDON EC2 5AA 1.00 pm Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform Scharwenka’s transcription of Beethoven’s 6th Symphony as part of their celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday year.
JULY 2020
JULY 25th BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY NO.9- BEN SCHOEMAN AND TESSA UYS IN SOUTHGATE, LONDON
7.00 pm. Hosted by Emile Woolf, Greenacre Walk, Southgate, London.
Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform Scharwenka’s transcription of Beethoven’s monumental 9th Symphony, Op.125 on Rachmaninoff’s beautiful London Steinway Piano.
JULY 31st TESSA UYS AND BEN SCHOEMAN AT REGENT HALL, LONDON
1.00pm Regent Hall, Oxford Street, Mayfair, London WC1 2DJ
At this Beethoven Society Concert,Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform Scharwenka’s transcription of Beethoven’s 4th Symphony as part of their celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday year.
AUGUST 2020
TESSA UYS SOLO RECITAL ST LAWRENCE JEWRY MUSIC FESTIVAL, Guildhall Yard, EC2 5AA (see St Lawrence Jewry website for details)
Biography
Born in Cape Town into an exceptionally musical and theatrical family Tessa Uys is one of South Africa’s most distinguished concert pianists. She was first taught by her mother Helga Bassel, herself a noted concert performer who fled to South Africa to escape Nazi persecution. Her father, Hannes Uys, was a formidable champion of choral music in South Africa and founder/director of one of the country’s leading children’s choirs.
Tessa Uys gave her first public performance at the age of seven and made her concerto debut at 13 with the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra conducted by David Tidboald. At 16, whilst still at school,she won a Royals Schools Associated Board Scholarship and continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studied with Gordon Green. Here she won many prizes, and in her final year was awarded the top prize, the Macfarren Medal. Further studies in London with Maria Curcio and in Siena, Italy with Guido Agosti. Shortly after this, Tessa Uys won the Royal Overseas League competition. During the past three decades, Tessa Uys has established herself an impressive reputation, both as concert performer and as a broadcasting artiste, performing at many of the major concert venues throughout the world. She is also in demand as examiner,teacher and adjudicator.
Tessa Uys made the first broadcast recordings of the Godowsky transcriptions of 12 Schubert songs for both BBC Radio 3 and Radio Hilversum in Holland. She has given thirteen recitals at the Wigmore Hall, as well as at St John’s Smith Square, and Southbank. Her wide-ranging repertoire encompasses Scarlatti and Brahms, Chopin and De Falla, Rachmaninov and Leos Janacek. She has recorded Bach’s Goldberg Variations for BBC Radio 3, and subsequently toured this demandingly virtuoso work throughout the UK, Europe and South Africa. Her empathy for Schumann’s music has been compared to that of Cortot, and is characterised by that empathetic approach so closely associated with her eminent predecessor.
Tessa Uys has played under such distinguished conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Walter Susskind and Louis Fremaux, Matthias Baemert and Nicholas Kraemer. She has also enjoyed the distinction of working with the film director John Schlesinger on his film ‘Madame Sousatzka’, starring Shirley MacLaine. In 1994 she was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. In the year 2000, to mark the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, she recorded the Goldberg Variations released as a double CD for GSE Claremont records. Since her last recital at the Wigmore Hall Tessa Uys has performed in South Africa,
Germany and the United Kingdom.
In recent years, Tessa Uys arranged an emotive journey of a Bluethner grand piano.The piano belonged to her German-born mother,who took it from Berlin to Cape Town in the late 1930’s. Now the instrument has made it’s final voyage back to the land of it’s creation, where it occupies the pride of place at the Berlin Jewish Museum,completing an elegant parabola from Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa to new eras in both lands.