FRANCO PRINSLOO
Composer & Conductor
Franco Prinsloo (1987-) is an award-winning composer from Pretoria, South Africa. He creates in a diverse variety of contemporary classical styles with a specific focus on choral music, vocal music, and music for theatre.
He has been the Musical Director for the Nedbank Arts and Culture Trust Performing Arts Scholarships from 2014 to the present. In 2019 he received the prestigious Nedbank ACT IMPACT AWARD for Young Professionals.
For his soundtrack to the film, Wonderlus, Prinsloo was nominated for the prestigious Silwerskermfees award for Best Original Score in an Afrikaans feature film.
He is an active composer in the new music scene in South Africa. He has been commissioned by prominent choirs including The King’s Singers; Kammerchor | Vocalisti (Hans-Joachim Lustig) and the acclaimed overtone singer Anna-Maria Hefele; The Akustika Chamber Singers (Christo Burger); The University of Stellenbosch Choir (André van der Merwe); The University of Pretoria Camarata (Michael Barrett) to name but a few.
Prinsloo established and conducts the renowned Vox Chamber Choir in 2017. A semi-professional chamber choir with highly skilled choristers dedicated to perform and record his compositions. The Choir received a Gold medal at the 10th INTERKULTUR World Choir Games
in Tshwane, South Africa in 2018, and another gold medal at the 7th International Anton Bruckner Choir Competition and Festival in Linz, Austria in 2019. During the Vox Chamber Choir’s concert tour in Europe in 2019, the Choir performed in notable venues and premiered Prinsloo’s new mass, "Missa Brevis 'San Marco'" in the Basilica San Marco in Venice, Italy.
His choral piece, Pula, Pula! (from his musical: “Naledi - an African Journey”), was commissioned by the NWU PUK Arts for the King’s Singers to be performed in 2017 during their South African concert tour. This composition also represented South Africa at the 2018 ISCM World Music Days in Tallin, Estonia, and was performed by Collegium Musicale under the direction of Endrik Üksvärav.
A selection of his choral music is published at Helbling Verlag (Austria) and available worldwide online.
Prinsloo composed a choral musical: "Naledi - an African Journey" which had its debut in February 2016 both at the South African State Theatre and at the Choralies Festival in France. The work was performed in April 2018 by the Cor di Juni Santa Christina in Val Gardena, Italy. Since the work has been numerously staged in South Africa and abroad with notable performances by the South African Youth Choir at the ArtsCape Theatre in Cape Town, South Africa, and performance and audio recording by the Vox Chamber Choir in 2019 and released in 2020. "Naledi an African journey" will be published worldwide by the publishing house: Helbling Verlag in 2020.
In 2018 he presented discussions and presentations about his own compositions for choir in collaboration with Helbling Verlag at the Europe Cantate in Tallinn, Estonia. Furthermore, Prinsloo co-presented a performance of new compositions for the viola at the 2018 International Viola Congress (ICV). Prinsloo presented new music for Harp and Soprano at the International Harp Congress in Hong Kong in 2017. In 2019 Prinsloo presented reading sessions and a lecture-recital at Chor.com in Hannover, Germany.
During the world-wide lockdown of 2020, Prinsloo created a project called Music for isolated musicians in which he challenged himself to write a solo miniature each day of the initial 21 days of lockdown in South Africa. These works were then distributed to musicians from all over the world, as an act of connection in a time of isolation. Collaborating on the project, Sonya Rademeyer made a sonic drawing of each of the performances.
Collaboration has been the focal point for Prinsloo in 2020, working with Sonya Rademeyer on various video installations, live drawings, installations, and community projects. These include Posthuman (National Arts Festival Fringe), Please forgive me (Pan African Cultural Exchange & ArtHarare), OM (Vrystaat Arts Festival), Prayer to the Young Moon (Vrystaat Arts Festival & 20/20 Entertainment in Containment), and Sonic Redress (Pan African Cultural Exchange & Vrystaat Arts Festival). The Art of Movement, another Vox Chamber Choir collaboration with filmmaker Willem van den Heever premiered in 2020 with Prinsloo’s composition Jonah’s Prayer as the focal point to this short musical film.
The year 2020 also saw the release of film soundtracks for Wonderlus, Meisies wat fluit, a new collection of Afrikaans art songs with soprano Renette Bouwer called Nagliedjies, music to the arts and healing project Sonic: Re-dress as well as being featured on Piccolo Solo Globe Tour by renowned piccolo player, Snježana Pavićević.
Three of his compositions also featured in the groundbreaking interactive digital dance performance by Darkroom Contemporary called Deus::et::Machina
"Prinsloo assimilates and unites disparate traditions within his own idiom" - Paul Boekkooi, South African art critic.
