Sally Minter is the subprincipal flute and piccolo of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and divides her time between South Africa and the United Kingdom.  She holds a Master of Art with merit from the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studied with renowned flautist Paul-Edmund Davies.  As one of Cape Town’s most diverse flautists, Sally performs regularly in various chamber ensembles, including her award-winning duo “Avanti” with pianist Coila-Leah Enderstein, who released their debut album "Avanti Live in Concert" in 2018, the Bella Rosa Quartet with pianist Albert Combrink and soprano Louise Howlett and cellist Pieter-Adriaan Stofberg and in the Cape Town Philharmonic and Cape Town Festival Orchestras.  As a concerto soloist, she has performed with every major orchestra in South Africa.  Sally also maintains a successful teaching studio, with several of her students winning high profile competitions and receiving excellent exam and eisteddfod results; as well as having one of her students accepted at the Royal Northern College of Music in the UK.  Most recently, Sally was the runner-up in the most prestigious national competition for instrumentalists: the SAMRO Competition.  

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Sally’s life has always been filled with music.  From a young age she participated in ballet and theatre productions and took recorder, piano, flute and saxophone lessons.  At school, Sally received distinctions for all her final music exams and received the Trinity Exhibition Award for obtaining the highest result in the country for a grade 8 exam.

 

As a student of Bridget Rennie Salonen, Sally graduated with a Bachelor of Music Honours, awarded with distinction and in the first class from the University of Cape Town.  Her Honours dissertation was a thematic, harmonic and melodic analysis of the flute concerto by Jacques Ibert.  During her time at UCT, Sally was the recipient of the class medal for three consecutive years for obtaining the highest aggregate in her year, performed as principal flute and soloist in the UCT Symphony Orchestra, and performed an on-stage flute solo described as “beguiling” by the Cape Times in Cape Town Opera’s production of Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims.  Most prolifically, she was the winner of the Fine Music Radio Award after a sold-out public performance in the Baxter Concert Hall.

 

During her time in London, Sally was lucky enough to perform under the baton of world-renowned conductors Marin Alsop and Semyon Bychkov, and receive lessons and masterclasses from top international flautists, including, among others, William Bennett, Emily Beynon and Gareth Davies.  With her studies generously supported by the Oppenheimer Memorial Foundation, Sally was a semi-finalist in the Orpheus Musician of the Year Competition and was awarded the highest accolade of “outstanding” in the Croydon Music Festival Concerto Competition, and also performed with the London Mahler Orchestra and the Orpheus Sinfonia.

 

Orchestrally, Sally has performed as the principal flute with orchestras across South Africa, including the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, Cape Town Festival Orchestra, the Free State Symphony Orchestra and the East Cape Philharmonic Orchestra.  In August 2018, Sally was appointed as subprincipal flute of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra after a highly competitive set of auditions.

 

Since her return to Cape Town, Sally has focused on building a varied and busy freelance performance and teaching career.  Most recently, she performed live on national television on the SABC3 Expresso Morning Show, was interviewed on Fine Music Radio and has toured to Johannesburg and Grahamstown for performances.  Her duo “Avanti” were also selected to participate in the prestigious DISA Decoda course where they received coaching from some of New York’s finest musicians. 

 

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For performance bookings or teaching consultations, please see the contact page.