Marvin Kernelle Named New Chorus Master of Cape Town Opera

This week Cape Town Opera (CTO) announced the appointment of Marvin Kernelle as the new Cape Town Opera Chorus Master. Kernelle succeeds Albert Horne, who is now Chordirektor and Dirigent at Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Germany.

Kernelle was born and raised in Cape Town. When he was 13 he started playing the organ under the guidance of renowned teacher Edwin Mullins. He joined Cape Town Opera in 2004 as a member of the Choral Training programme where he received advanced music theory tuition and choral training for their productions. From 2005 to 2007, he attended the University of Cape Town's Opera School, where he studied towards a Performers Diploma in Opera under the tutelage of Virginia Davids. He joined the CTO Chorus 2008 and sang in many of CTO's productions on local stages and abroad and was a full time chorus member and assistant chorus conductor when the company won the International Chorus Award in London in 2013. Since 2012, Marvin has been the Project Manager for CTO's West Coast Choral Outreach Programme and also conducted the concert at the end of the project which included a mass children's chorus of 300, the West Coast Youth Academy Orchestra and Cape Town Opera's chorus. Kernelle was Chorus Master for the children's choir in CTO's productions of CARMEN in 2010 and OTELLO in 2013. He performed all the backstage conducting during CTO's production of MADAMA BUTTERFLY in September 2013.

Asked about his new appointment at CTO, Kernelle says "This has been a rewarding 10 year journey, I am honored and humbled by this new appointment and looking forward to the next chapter in my book... I'm so excited about my first rehearsal as CTO's Chorus Master."

THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, the classic comic opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, is the first CTO production on which Kernelle will be working as Chorus Master. CTO will conclude its 2014 season with THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO at Artscape from 18 - 26 October and Dominick Argento and John Donahue's POSTCARD FROM MOROCCO also at Artscape in November. On his successful journey from a member of the Cape Town Opera Chorus to assistant chorus conductor and now to Chorus Master, Cape Town Opera congratulates Marvin Kernelle.