Audiences around the world are often apprehensive about what is seen as new music, but, as Daniel Rowland, the virtuoso violinist who is coming to give the first Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra performance of the concerto Distant Light by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks says, there is so much to love, he tells PETA STEWART:
“Distant Light is gorgeous to listen to and it is inspiring – it has three extremely important elements – Vask’s love of nature, spirituality and, very much present, the conflict, the struggle between the forces of good and the forces of darkness, and Pēteris’s deeply held belief that goodness and love can conquer all.”
The performance will take place as the final concert in the Winter Symphonies at the City Hall season on Thursday, 25 June 2026. The concert will be conducted by Bernhard Gueller and will also include Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye and the Symphony No. 9 in C Major, “The Great”.
For Rowland, Vasks is very special, for he has become a good friend and they will be celebrating his 80th birthday in August when he comes to Rowland’s Stift Festival in Holland for the third time. There Daniel will perform several of his works including the premiere of a new work and the Dutch premiere of his second violin concerto Evening Light. Vasks also wrote a sonata for solo violin for Daniel, Summer Sonata, and with Maja (his wife the cellist Maja Bogdanovich) a wonderful, infinitely moving duo Castillo Interior,” one of the most touching and powerful pieces I know. We have recorded it.
“I think Distant Light may possibly be, for my taste, the greatest work that Pēteris Vasks has composed. For decades, he has been one of the celebrated composers of our time. His music has become very important on my journey as a musician.”
Travelling with instruments and family
Rowland’s travel plans are complex and frequent from his home in Amsterdam to his engagements around the world but he (hopefully) has less to worry about than other violinists who have been stopped boarding aircraft because their violin cases are centimetres too large.
“Maja and I have had plenty of situations where she has been denied boarding despite having a second ticket for her cello,” he says, “so she gave me a very thoughtful birthday present one year – a really miniaturistic violin case – the smallest one can really have – which looks like a little backpack. And since I got that, not one single time has anyone questioned it. I think they don’t even notice it. So that’s been a bit of a lifesaver.” Thank heavens, because they often travel with their two young daughters, Lily (5) and Evi (almost 3) , plus violin and cello Sadly this time they aren’t bringing them with them when they come for this engagement and 10 days at the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival (where he will perform in pieces such as Philip Glass’s Second Violin Concerto: The American Four Seasons, a really exciting, vibrant piece that alternates his viscerally energetic rhythms with some truly gorgeous melodic writing).
He and Maja are sorry about they aren’t bringing their children. “We love bringing them into contact with all these wonderful musician friends, with all the colourful places, and maybe even more importantly, the colourful personalities and people we meet on the road. They absorb this well. More than that, they seem to be inspired by it! But now Lily has to go to school.”
Chamber music is very close to his heart – apart from having come to Stellenbosch perhaps 15 times, he runs his own festival in Stift and he plays in many others, “often with Maja in duo, in piano trio, in quartet, and other larger combinations, going to festivals together – it’s a really great joy, and we’ve shared our lives now for seven years. Mixing family life with musical life – the private with the musician’s life, so to say – is something really beautiful. I’ve always felt that if you can mix friendship and music, that’s something beautiful, something I really love.”
A musical omnivore
He led the Brodsky Quartet for 12 years and leads a number of other chamber ensembles and plays in “much-cherished groups that have been part of my life for many years – with pianist Natacha Kudritskaya, or Marcelo Nisinman, master and protégé of Astor Piazzolla himself – I love to let my hair down and dive into the world of tango.”
He calls himself an omnivore when it comes to what he likes performing. “I’ve always loved playing concertos – from Mozart to the great Romantics to newly composed pieces. My father was a composer so I grew up with new and contemporary music at home. I’ve always believed that working with composers and playing new music is our duty as performers – and it’s also deeply inspiring.”
He teaches too. For the last fourteen or fifteen years or so, he has taught at the Royal College of Music in London, “a school I really love. I have an excellent international class of about six students, which is just right to combine with all my playing.”
He also “adores directing orchestras from the violin with the very direct contact with all these individual musicians” and he loves coming up with thematic programmes, thinking of interesting juxtapositions and surprising connections across the ages for his chamber music festival in the Dutch countryside.
“The CPO is filled with fantastic musicians”
He is glad to be back in Cape Town, glad of the opportunity to connect with an orchestra he admires.” The CPO plays with a great deal of personality and real engagement, and is filled with fantastic musicians. An added bonus is playing in the splendid City Hall. I realise that every time I’ve performed with the CPO so far, I’ve had the special treat of performing with Bernhard Güeller – also with the JPO. I have only the warmest memories of his generous, deeply knowledgeable music-making, so deeply rooted in the splendid European traditions in the very best sense. The Brahms Double with Maja we played in a FOM gala a couple of years ago was another memorable experience.
He leaves South Africa in mid-July to go to Finland, run his 10-day 35-concert Stift festival, take the family on a road trip to Italy, then leave to play in for Chile. And maybe South Africa will be on his itinerary again in the not to distant future.
What: Daniel Rowland and the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra
Where and when: Cape on City Hall on 25June 2026
Tickets: Webtickets
More information: The dress rehearsal for the CPO concert on the same day is open to the public at 11am. There will be a pre-concert talk open to concertgoers at 6.45pm.
Dress reherasal tickets: Quicket
Stellenbosch Festival tickets: Webtickets
Photographs: Marco Borggreve
WS
