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Petra comes from Cape Town, South Africa where she received lessons in violin with Prof. Farida Bacharova and graduated with distinction in her Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance at the University of Cape Town (South African College of Music). She received several awards while at the University of Cape Town including the Alfred Libochowitz prize for violin playing, the Musicanti Chamber Orchestra Award, the SAMRO general music study bursary and was placed on the Dean's Merit List for each year. Petra was also awarded the opportunity to go for a semester abroad to the University of California in Los Angeles and while at UCLA she received violin lessons from Prof. Movses Pogosian and Dr. Ji Young An. 

 

After her Bachelor degree, she went on to do an Honours in Music from the University of Cape Town, where she did both ethnomusicology and performance, writing a thesis on the migration of the Qanbus lute in the Indian Ocean and how it journeyed to Cape Town. She took piano as a second instrument while at the college and also took up the baroque violin. Before enrolling in University she had been a competitor in several national music competitions and received a DipABRSM in violin performance and a grade 8 ABRSM in both Singing and Piano. 

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Petra has performed as a solo violinist with orchestra as well as being an ad hoc tutti violinist for the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and with the baroque violin for the Camerata Tinta Barocca and Cape Consort. She has a great interest in world music, folk or ethnic music from all over the world as well as having an interest in unique approaches to teaching music (for instance Dalcroze eurhythmics) and performing. She has also performed with traditional African musicians and ensembles, performed with MusicDance021 interdisciplinary real-time composition project and attended a summer school in Dalcroze Eurhythmics in Australia. 

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Education

2019- Honours in Music specialising in violin performance and ethnomusicology University of Cape Town
2018-Bachelor in Music specialising in Violin Performance. Degree awarded with subject violin with distinction and degree with distinction.
2013- Dip ABRSM in violin performance.