Lowveld - Dec 2019

Text: ALITA STEENKAMP. Photographer: TANYA ERASMUS
MUSIC IN
HER GENES
One thing is for sure: if music is embedded in your genes, sooner or later it will
catch up with you. Theresa Prinsloo still clearly remembers the day when the
beautiful old piano belonging to one of her ancestors, Rocco C de Villiers, arrived at
their house in Pretoria as part of her father’s inheritance.
Born a De Villiers, Theresa remembers
various excellent musicians in her
father’s extended family. Musicians
like Elise de Villiers, a world-renowned
violinist, and ML de Villiers, the
composer who wrote the music for
CJ Langenhoven’s “The Call of South
Africa” that is still part of our national
anthem.
“I was only four years old, but I still
remember touching the white keys
of that piano and deciding there and
then that the only thing in life I would
like to do is to play the piano, and
that is what I still do today,” Theresa
says. “Later on, I also dreamt of playing
my own harp, but it still took quite a while before I learnt to master the harp
during my studies at the University of Pretoria.”
Theresa is well-known in Mbombela as a wonderful virtuoso pianist as well as
an excellent harpist and music teacher. She has a lot of musical students from
various schools in Mbombela and at this year’s eisteddfod, like previous years,
hers excelled. She and two of her students, playing a harp trio, bowled the
judges over and received 100% for their performance.
Although she always wanted to become a concert pianist, things didn’t go as
planned. She had quite an exciting life being an air hostess, flying to Paris very
often to study at a Parisian conservatory. Theresa was later married, but things
didn’t work out as planned and she divorced, after which she started teaching.
She then got promoted to a position of Inspector of Music, a job she really
loved, but eventually got tired of all the stress, and returned to teaching.
One day, while sitting in her office in Pretoria, she received a call from Gerrit
Haarhoff. Theresa had been at school with his sisters and so knew him. He
20 Get It Lowveld December 2019