Chapter six · 1970 onwards
From teachers to musicians
When the college closed, the music did not.
The Frank Pietersen Music Centre began as the Paarl Schools Music Centre in 1970, founded by the teacher and musician whose name it now carries. Its history and its contribution to the community are the subject of a full masters thesis at Stellenbosch University.
The Centre has since been rebuilt more than once. Vaughan Pietersen restarted teaching with a handful of learners and grew the programme back into a full orchestra; by the early 2020s he was leading the Centre's combined ensembles in public concerts in Paarl.
Today the Centre employs a staff of fifteen and teaches children across the Paarl valley. It is the clearest line from the Institute's founding purpose to the present: a formal education, delivered locally, to children the system would otherwise pass over.
Sources for this chapter
- Die Frank Pietersen Musieksentrum: Historiese agtergrond en ontwikkelingsbydrae tot die gemeenskap — Petrus Jacobus Coetzee, Stellenbosch University (MMus thesis), March 2013 Read the source
- Frank Pietersen Christmas concert, Paarl Post, 1 December 2023 Read the source