Peta Stewart
Orchestras around the world are used to artists jetting in for a couple of days, and in Cape Town’s case, maybe having a day or two to sightsee. Sadly, in the case of Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition 2025 gold medallist Nikola Meeuwsen who is opening the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra’s Winter Symphonies in an all-Beethoven programme on 4 June 2026, he doesn’t have much time. He will be on the late-night flight to Amsterdam leaving the City Hall directly after his performance to get home in time to present a concert in The Hague.
Some of his favourite moments
Fortunately, the 24-year-old who comes to Cape Town from a concert in Oslo has enough energy and will try to fit in a hike up Lion’s Head in the couple of days he has before his appearance. Naturally this will be in those precious hours he will spend practising for his debut with the CPO in the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor by Beethoven, a work he says has some of his personal favourite moments in all five concertos by the composer.
“Just after the cadenza in the first movement, there is a moment with piano and timpani which is just magical. Then, the second movement, so beautiful, has a unique stillness to it. The last movement is incredibly fiery, it with a lot of humour and the coda is one of the most joyful things he wrote,” he says.
Maestro Arjan Tien
Nikola can’t wait to play it in Cape Town and is especially happy because he will be working with Maestro Arjan Tien, who will also conduct the Coriolan Overture and the Symphony No. 3, “Eroica” in this concert, “The Heroic Beethoven”. They first played together 10 years ago when Nikola was 14, and he played in Mozart’s Double Piano Concerto in his home town, The Hague.
Winning the Queen Elisabeth competition in 2025 changed Nikola’s life. Doors opened as they always do for winners of such prestigious competitions and suddenly there was no time to breathe between engagements – recitals, concertos and chamber music. Janine Jansen invited him to her International Chamber Music Festival in Utrecht last year and from this year for three years he will be her Artist in Residence. “It was such an honour to win the competition, which has mythical status,” he says, “and an honour to play with Janine.” He was the first Dutch winner in the competition so close to home, in Brussels.
A career in music came naturally to him, he says. His father is a violist who teaches music history and has a huge selection of classical recordings which he always played as Nikola was growing up. His mother is a flautist. His cousin is a cellist and Nikola ctually took up the cello when he was six and gave it up six weeks later for the piano, influenced perhaps by some of the piano recordings of the old giants. “It always fascinated me,” he adds.
He has presented some master classes, but he doesn’t yet teach and sees that as part of his future. He also improvises, so perhaps composition is also in his future.
Fortunately, he loves all the music he plays and the variety of compositions and different types of concerts and now, because he so many engagements he can play this music more often. Brahms looms large is his mind, and he loves the fireworks that Liszt writes into his concertos – ”his octaves are really cool”, and as for Beethoven and Mozart “playing their concertos is almost like chamber music.” The challenge which he loves is to play a concerto, chamber music and a solo recital in a matter of days because all require focus.
“My goal is to explore so much more of the available (and new) repertoire and my dream, of course, is to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic or the Vienna Philharmonic” and with his talent he will definitely get there!
Hopefully he will be back before his career means he is booked up three years in advance, and he would like to come back because he sees Cape Town as an ideal place to do what he likes to do – cycle to clear his head and keep fit! And maybe visit a few museums and churches.
The dress rehearsal for the CPO concert on the same day is open to the public at 11:00. There will be a pre-concert talk open to concertgoers at 18:45.
Who: Nikola Meeuwsen and the Cape Town Phiharmonic Orchestra
Where: Cape Town City Hall
When: 4 June 2026
Concert tickets: Here or Artscape Dial-A-Seat 021 421 7695
Dress rehearsal tickets: Here
WS
