Vetta Wise

Vetta Wise (?-) is a conductor and teacher.

Training

Vetta trained at the University of Cape Town and the Royal College of Music Opera School.

Career

She worked as a solo singer in the UK and SA for several years. She settled in the UK after 12 years as Chorus Master of Cape Town Opera, Director of the CT Philharmonia Choir, and as University music lecturer in South Africa. There she had established the ground-breaking opera Choral Training Programme for disadvantaged young township singers, and worked with, amongst others, Menuhin, Osawa, Pavarotti, Rutter, Willcocks, the LPO and Birmingham Royal Ballet, winning national awards for her choral work.

Since relocating to the UK, Vetta conducted and worked with many choirs, including founding the Pakefield Singers, the award-winning North Suffolk Youth Choir, three choirs at St Felix school (winning the Ipswich Festival Senior schools’ trophy) and the acclaimed vocal ensemble Seraphim, performing locally, nationally and overseas, as well as on the BBC. She has conducted and advised choirs in Italy, Austria, Jersey, Germany, Denmark and South Africa, and she currently also directs the Aurora Consort, the Halesworth “Offcut Choir” and the Southwold and Reydon Choral Society.

Vetta was a Voice Tutor for the University of East Anglia, and has a busy private singing studio, presenting frequent and popular solo singing masterclasses.

She was appointed chorus director for Britten’s “War Requiem” at Bury St Edmund’s Cathedral for the Britten Centenary celebrations, was co-leader of a Youth Choirs Workshop in Ely, presented choral and conducting workshops in the UK and SA; and planned, trained, and has conducted numerous massed choir performances of several works including Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem, Orff’s “Carmina Burana” and many others. She has conducted at several music festivals and at Snape Maltings.

Vetta has been on the adjudication Panel of the Melting Pot Choral Competition in Gauteng, South Africa since its inception, giving master classes in choral conducting and singing there, and conducting both “Creation” and “Messiah” in Cape Town in recent years.

Sources

https://www.pakefieldsingers.com/biographies/

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