André van der Merwe

André van der Merwe is an actor, conductor, choral music arranger and composer.

Biography

He originally studied for his Bachelor of Music at the University of Cape Town, but suffered an injury to his hand so he changed his studies to a BA (Drama) at the University of Stellenbosch, where he excelled as actor.

He became a teacher and choir master, serving as conductor of such award winning choirs as He is the musical director of the Stellenberg Girls Choir the Stellenberg Girls Choir (since 1999), the Stellenbosch University Choir[1] (since 2003) and his own adult choir, Voces Cordis[].

Under his baton both ensembles have won numerous national and international awards. The US Choir for example has been voted best in the world by Interkultur[] for most of the years between 2012 and 2020.

Since 2012 André has been selected as the South African representative on the World Choir Council for Interkultur[2] and in 2018 he served as the chairperson of the National Artistic Committee the 2018 World Choir Games, held in Tshwane, South Africa.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

As a student at the Drama Department at Stellenbosch, he acted in a large numer of departmental productions, among them playing "Prospero" in The Tempest (),