About Musical Minds
1986: Teresa starts at the age of 4 years to astound people by playing "Blue Spanish Eyes"like few adults can play.
1987: She begins music training at the age of 5 - she surprise everyone by not having a problem recognising mf, pp, ff and rit even when she was not reading in school yet and only shown once.
1988: Teresa pass her pre-grade UNISA with Honourable Mention
1989: She pass her Gr 2 UNISA exams and receives the Crescendo Trophy
1990: Now at the age of 9 together with St.7 (Gr.9) High School students on the same level - Gr 3 UNISA standard - Prof. Josias van der Merwe (Head of Culture & Arts of Technicon Pretoria and examinator and professor at UNISA) saw her exceptional talent after evaluating all the students that participated. According to him she was held back and should be performing more and at a higher level due to her extra ordinary talent. He suggested that she gets formal professional tutoring as soon as possible.
The Music Centre immediately followed his suggestion and after requiring about a teacher, he personally offered to take her on as a student. She starts at the age of 9 with Prof. van der Merwe.
1991: Pass her Gr.3 and Gr.4 UNISA practical exams with Honourable Mention
1992: At the age of 11 she is chosen as soloist to play with the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra. The very strict auditions were done over the whole South Africa and Namibia and with the auditions the conductor, Mr. Pienaar Fourie, told Prof. van der Merwe that he could not believe his ears when he heard her play.
The Concerto - Piano Concerto in F major, K459 Nr.1 Allegro of Mozart (Gr.8 UNISA standard) was 38 pages long and she played it from memory.
At her Primary School the Head of the school Mr. Schlebush awarded her with a historical tribute in the school records.
1993: She is elected to participate in the Sanlam Music Competition for extremely gifted children.
1994: She pass Gr.5 Theory at UNISA with Honourable Mention and again is awarded with a historical tribute in the school records.
She performs as solo artist in the Breytenbach Heater in Pretoria
She participates in the Sanlam Music Competition again and Mr. GW Koornhof, Head of Culture & Arts of the Department of Education and his wife (well known in the music industry) praised her for the performance and exceptional talent.
1995: Pass her Gr.7 practical UNISA exam with Honourable Mention and again is awarded historical tribute in the high school records. She starts with preparations for her final exam.
1996: Teresa performs at the Johannesburg Kayalami Classics before a sold out audience
1997: Pass her Gr.6 UNISA Theory exams
1999: Pass her Gr.8 Practical UNISA exams with Honours
She won various competitions throughout her musical career in Light Music as well as Classical. Performed at numerous events and functions and also went on to study B Tech Light Music at the Technicon of Pretoria while proceeding with her Classical Teachers Licence at UNISA.
Musical Minds has originated from a life dream becoming a reality. We couldn't believe that it has been since 2009 that Teresa has left her corporate position and pursued her dream of music. She started out tutoring students on a part-time basis and this started to pan out .
Tiaan has joined her full time since January 2010 in the business tutoring music in piano, keyboard, guitar and drums. He left his full time position to join their joint dream and passion. He also has a creative and colourful background in music.
We are also proud to say that we had our first concert in 2010 with 45 students participating and expanded every year since then. The yearly concert being an exciting opportunity for every student when we put together bands and show each student's progress and giving them the opportunity to perform as a group or alone. Every Concert was a huge success so far with a lot of enquiries of when the next concert will be.
Musical minds have become our dream come true.