Peter Guy
program manager
Peter Guy was born and educated in America. He completed his Masters of Music Performance at the University of Illinois. He attended the presti- gious Aspen Music Festival for five years on full scholarship, He began his professional playing career with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra where he was the co-principal double bass for five years before moving to South Africa to take up a position with the then Natal Philharmonic in Durban. After two years as co-principal he assumed the principal position until he moved to Bloemfontein to take up a senior lecturer position at the Free State Musicon. He has played principal double bass in the Free State Symphony Orchestra, the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra and the Stellenbosch Festival Orchestra. His students have held positions in most of the major symphony orchestras in South Africa, as well as being in the majority of the double bass sections at the yearly National Youth Orchestra course.
In May of 2003 he was given the Music Achiever of the Year Award in Johannesburg. He was nominated for Bloemfonteiner of the Year in 2004, was recently awarded a Centenary Medallion by the University of the Free State and given honorary membership in the Golden Key Academic Society, and most recently a Silver Madal for Outstanding Service from the office of the Premier in the Free State, all for his work with the historically disadvantaged communities in and around Bloemfontein. In 1998 he started the Bochabela String Project with 18 children at the Bochabela Primary School, which now encompasses over 550 children. Nine or ten of these children are from the Bartimea School for the blind. Another 80 are from towns like Springfontein, Trompsburg, Phillippolis, and Fauresmith. The others are from Mangaung.