Kelebogile Pearl Besong

About

Opera Singer

Story

In the season 2014/2015 Kelebogile Besong will make her role-debut in the title-role in Aida in a new production at the Opera in Malmö and she is scheduled to sing Musetta in La Bohème at Grange Park Opera. A series of Opera gala concerts are planned with the NDR Radiophilharmonie conducted by Andrew Litton and further ahead she will participate in a tour through Holland singing Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and conductor Kenneth Montgomery.

At the Bregenzer Festpiele 2015 she is scheduled to sing Fiordiligi in a young artists production of Cosi fan Tutte.

Some of her recent highlights include her role-debut as Violetta in La Traviata at the Opéra national de Montpellier, her role-debut as Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Tampere Opera under the baton of Roy Goodman and the roles of Venus in John Blow’s Venus and Adonis as well as the Sorceress in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik.

Other operatic roles for Kelebogile Besong are Micaela in Carmen, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro and Gabisile in the Opera Africa world premiere of Ziyankomo and the Forbidden Fruit by Phelelani Mnomiya. Kelebogile has also appeared at Den Norske Opera in Opera Africa’s production of the Zulu Opera Princess Magogo as well as at Opéra Royal de Wallonie as Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos.
On the concert-platform she already performed works such as Mahler’s 4th Symphony, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Mozart’s Requiem and Great Mass in C- Minor.

She won the national soloist competition at the Tirisano Schools Choral Eisteddfod for three consecutive years and was later awarded a scholarship to study for a BA in performing arts at Tshwane University of Technology.

Kelebogile Besong is the proud recipient of the 2012 Standard Bank Young Artist Award in Music and in 2013 she was awarded Africa Most Influential Woman in Business & Government (Arts). Kelebogile was also a finalist of the 32nd Belvedere Singing Competition 2013, held at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam.