Over three days, eight leading pianists explore the meeting point between South African jazz and classical piano traditions, across four intimate double-bill concerts. Each performance is solo, placing improvisation, storytelling and technical mastery front and centre in one of Joburg’s most finely tuned acoustic spaces. The inaugural 2025 edition was a standout on the city’s music calendar – and this year promises the same excellence. Held at the Wits Chris Seabrooke Music Hall – the city’s only purpose-built modern live music hall – the setting is part of the experience. Designed for chamber music and home to a world-class Shigeru Kawai concert grand piano, the space amplifies every nuance.
“This is an acoustic piano music festival for our distinctive heritage, which includes a Zulu piano tradition and a Cape jazz piano tradition,” says festival curator Carlo Mombelli, a jazz composer, bassist and educator. “But this goes further, to the music of the marimba. And because the piano was invented in Italy in the 1700s, I wanted to also honour the instrument’s musical roots there, which is why we also have classical piano.”
Meet the artists
The 2026 Wits Standard Bank Piano Festival brings together a line-up of leading pianists whose work spans jazz, classical and contemporary traditions, some drawn from the illustrious pool of past Standard Bank Young Artist Award winners.Thembi Dunjana explores heritage and modernity through evolving indigenous forms, while Thandi Ntuli blends jazz, soul and African idioms into a fluid, genre-defying language shaped by collaboration. Yonela Mnana moves between tradition and contemporary jazz, drawing on deep study and everyday sound, and Bokani Dyer is known for his lyrical, reflective approach to identity and belonging.
Hilton Schilder is rooted in the Kaapse Klopse tradition, carrying forward the Cape’s rhythmic heritage across decades of collaboration and recordings, while Andile Yenana’s piano language is grounded in South African jazz and its cultural memory. Representing the classical programme, Megan-Geoffrey Prins is an internationally recognised pianist and lecturer known for expressive interpretations, alongside Taíssa Poliakova Cunha, whose repertoire spans Russian Romantic, Portuguese and contemporary works across an international career.
Programme highlights: Wits Standard Bank Piano Festival 2026
Fri, May 8: Opening night with Thandi Ntuli and Thembi DunjanaSat, May 9 (afternoon): Yonela Mnana and Bokani Dyer
Sat, May 9 (evening): The Elders performance
Sun, May10: A classical finale with Megan-Geoffrey Prins and visiting international artist Taíssa Poliakova Cunha.
Book your tickets for this experience
When: Fri, May 8 – Sun, May 10, 2026Where: Wits Chris Seabrooke Music Hall, Braamfontein
Tickets: R300 p.p
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