Some dreams really do come true and for Roxane Steffen, principal double bass with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, two are coming true this week, says PETA STEWART.
Both were a matter of time. The first was that she really wants to perform for an audience in the City Hall again, and the concert on Thursday, October 21, is the first one in months where she can. The second is far bigger and far older … it has long been her dream to perform with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra as a soloist.
“I was already in discussion with orchestra management about a solo engagement and when Allan Stephenson passed away I suggested his Burlesque for Double Bass and Small Orchestra, written in 1973 for the late Zoltan Kovats, principal double bass with the CTSO back then,” she says. With the addition of Stephenson’s Cape Town Overture, the concert is a tribute to Allan Stephenson.
The Burlesque is a delightful piece that shows Allan as a marvellous composer with gorgeous orchestral colours and the typical frivolous character of his works.
“It’s really a big deal for me,” she says. “After this I can retire.” She’s kidding of course! “This is a pinnacle. I have done everything else I want to but to play solo in ‘my’ hall with my orchestra and with my audience. The marvelous City Hall is one of the reasons that kept me in Cape Town!”
Staying in the sun!
Roxanne Steffen came to Cape Town by chance. “I was working in the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra in Amsterdam and decided that I would like to experience another country for a year. Like most Dutch people I wanted to follow the sun, and I also wanted to stay in the same time zone so southern Spain was the obvious choice. But then I saw the ad for a double bass position with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra for one year and thought it’s a bit further, but also sunny, so I applied. and here I still am.”
Since Roxane was four, she has been on stage singing, dancing, acting or playing an instrument or even all combined together. In her teenage years she played cello in the Rotterdam Youth Chamber Orchestra (RYCO) which rehearsed in the Doelen, the home of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and as a young musician she looked up to the members of the Philharmonic as if they were superstars! She also studied double bass in Rotterdam with the principal double bass then, Hans Krul, so Rotterdam and the Philharmonic are really where she ‘grew up’ as a musician.
It may sound strange when you hear that Roxane wanted to originally become a police detective or have her own riding stables someday, but instead ended up as a professional musician having started the violin at 6, the recorder at 7. At the age of 8, she decided to take up the cello. At the end of high school, she knew the cello was not her passion and it was a time for change. This was inspired by her conductor of the RYCO who was promoting the viola to violinists because there are many violinists and a shortage of violists. The same principle applied to the many cellists versus the few double bass players.
Soul mate
What gave her the final push was seeing the most elegant Cuban lady playing an equally elegant Italian double bass in the Rotterdam Philharmonic and she immediately asked her mom if they could get a bass. Her mother has always been very supportive so they went to the luthier the same week and traded the cello for a double bass. A couple months later, aged 16, she was a student at the Rotterdam Conservatory.
In 1994 she found her ‘soulmate’, a beautiful Josef Rubner double bass, made in 1902. “This bass is an extension of myself; the sound is just me and I would be lost without it,” says Roxanne. She also owns a second one, a ‘safari’ bass, and is good buddies with the 5-string Pölmann double bass named ”Smokey” belonging to the CPO and which she plays for most of the CPO concerts.
Roxane comes from a musical family, her mom an excellent pianist and music educator, although it has never been her profession, and her brother a violinist and conductor. Strangely enough they hardly played together! Only at Roxane’s final recital at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague did Marnix and Roxane play a duo which they repeated last year in lockdown, both recording from home in Cape Town and Lima, Peru where Marnix then lived then. They launched the video on mother’s day on YouTube. In June 2020 he repatriated to The Netherlands and is still there. There are plans for a concert together in January!
What: Cyber Symphonies in Summer Season with Roxane Steffen (soloist)
When and where: Live at the City Hall on October 21, streamed on the Quicket platform as part of the full season beginning November 4.
Tickets live concert: https://qkt.io/1YxdSZ
Tickets streaming: https://qkt.io/8je0V7
WS
