Beverley Knight
Pop guest Beverley Knight has been one of the UK's most consistent artists for two decades, scoring several top 10 albums, including the platinum-selling Voice: The Best of Beverley Knight. She has sold over a million albums in the UK along the way, including four gold certified albums. Her latest album Soulsville was released in June 2016 and went straight into the UK Top 10. She has collaborated on stage and on record with the likes of Prince, Jamiroquai, Bryan Adams, Carlos Santana, Bocelli, Jamie Cullum, Joss Stone, Take That and Chaka Kahn.
Carlo Bernini earned the title of conductor in 1999 at Livorno Conservatoire, under the guidance of Maestro Lorenzo Paris. Since 1986 Maestro Bernini has been Andrea Bocelli’s friend and artistic director. Bernini and Bocelli have worked together doing concerts, operas, classical recordings and have collaborated with record companies alongside the greatest conductors, such as Z Mehta, L Maazel, G Sinopoli.
Cuban Soprano Maria Aleida started her musical studies at the Vicente Emilio Sojo Conservatory in Venezuela in 1999. She currently studies with voice teacher Bill Schuman. She won the Montserrat Caballe international voice competition in Zaragoza (2008), the Mario Lanza Institute in Philadelphia (2009). She is a resident artist at The Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. In 2016/17 she joined Bocelli as soloist in concert in such venues as Florence, Lisbon and Panama. In 2017 she joined a series of concerts with Bocelli in such venues as Tashkent, Graz, Linz, Marbella, Amsterdam, Kaunas, Riga, Krakow, Bratislava and Budapest.
Violinist Anastasiya Petryshak began performing at the age of eight, participating and winning numerous important national and international competitions under the direction of Marta Kalynchuk. In 2005 she moved to Italy to continue her violin studies, later becoming, at the age of just 15, the youngest violinist in the high specialisation violin course held by Maestro Salvatore Accardo at the “Walter Stauffer” International Academy in Cremona and at the Chigiana Academy in Siena. Since 2010 she has been working regularly as a soloist and in duets with Bocelli, joining him in many concerts to great public and critical acclaim.
Drawing millions in with his popular crossover appeal, Bocelli has collaborated with a host of A-list pop stars including Céline Dion, Tony Bennett, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Lopez, Nicole Scherzinger and many more. He also wowed UK football fans with a performance for Claudio Ranieri’s Premier League-winning Leicester City at the King Power Stadium in 2016. Bocelli continues to tour the world with major shows in the US, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Canada, Ireland the UK and now South Africa, where fans will have the opportunity to hear his new music.
Bocelli will be performing with a full 140-piece symphony orchestra and choir. In Johannesburg, he will perform with the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra and the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg and in Cape Town with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. The concert will be split into two parts. For the first part, fans will get to experience Bocelli perform some of the most famous opera arias. The second part will be dedicated to his most popular hit and crossover songs for a once in a lifetime evening. Matteo Bocelli will also be joining his father to perform the duet “Fall On Me”.
Both concerts are sold out.
