What a pleasure to have the School of Music/Conservatory back on our agenda for 2023 and especially with the titillating Potchpourri programme’s variety of sound and hi-jinks on Thursday, 23 February.

It all started quite respectably with “Come Together” with voice, piano, guitar and bass by the Beatles, but the mischievousness came to the fore with Aslett acting up as a rebellious teenager casting out words, not toys.

Grieg was represented by the eight hands of four horn-bearing Vikings on two pianos by van Vreden, Olivier, Wentink and Viljoen. Soprano Magagula and baritone Cupido presented Donizetti with vivré as only two powerful voices could argue out.

The mysterious P.D.Q. Bach’s spectre reflected the poor finances of the performers who had to share one viola between the two Koornhofs and Wentink on piano. They also excelled with a fourmetre-long bowstring on viola performance. Some sanity returned to the stage with Weyer and Mathee’s beautiful rendition of a Rachmaninoff suite No. 2 for two pianos. The Joy of Life returned from the group performance by Oosthuizen [flute], Van der Merwe [bassoon], Wentink [piano], and Janse van Rensburg [drums].

The virtuoso of Botha sparkled with Gershwin’s “Embraceable You”. What a thrill to experience the jazzy performances of Bolling by Oosthuizen [flute], Viljoen [piano] and Bester [double bass] and Janse van Rensburg [drums]. The surprise of the programme was the timid Stacey [umrhubhe stringbow] maintaining her pose against Sassman’s boisterous tuba.

Concluding a spectacular evening of music and fun was the combined talents of flute, clarinet, sax, bassoon, trumpet, accordion, piano, sanding blocks, cake pan and milk pans and mugs doing honour to Leroy Anderson. What a spectacular kick-off to the year’s musical joy.