Jo-Nette Le Kay

Jo-Nette Le Kay is originally from the beautiful Winelands town Paarl, where she did her schooling and took music lessons. She holds a BA degree in Psychology and Geography as well as a Performance Licentiate in Singing from Stellenbosch University. Jo-Nette furthered her studies by doing Post Graduate studies in teaching and performance at the University of Cape Town. She has recently read for her Masters in Music degree at Rhodes University and is awaiting her results. She did a phenomenological study on the ‘Mad Scene’ in opera and the Bel Canto Style of singing.

She has taught at Music departments in Paarl, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Grahamstown (Makhanda). For the past few years, she was a lecturer in Voice studies at Rhodes University but has recently returned to the Western Cape to further her performance and teaching career. Since the end of 2022 she has been a part - time Voice lecturer at the University of Cape Town. Jo-Nette spent some time abroad and performed in the UK, Germany and Switzerland. In London, she belonged to Opera Integra and Hampstead Garden opera. In Germany she performed as a soloist at a ‘Last Night of the PROMS’ concert series with Klassik Philharmonie Hamburg at Moorrege, Mehrzweckhalle and at Hamburg, Laeiszhalle-Musikhalle under the baton of Robert Stehli in September 2012. Maestro Stehli invited her to perform another programme with Klassik Philharmonie in Hamburg, Husum and Glücksburg in December 2013 / January 2014. In Switzerland she was part of two concert series in 2012 and 2013/2014 to perform a South African program for the South African Embassy based in Bern. Locally she put together her own productions such as Celebration of Song (2001), Opera and Poetry (2003), La Dolce Vita (2006), Magnifique Classique (2011) and ‘Feast of Opera’ (2013) and was part of the Cape Town based sensational group ‘The South African Sopranos’ from 2012 till 2015. While living in Johannesburg she was part of Sempre Opera, performed in the Brooklyn theatre productions (Verdi Concert series) and productions with the well-known South African tenor Stefan Louw.  In September 2016 Jo-Nette performed in a Don Giovanni production in Pretoria, with the Pretoria Symphony Orchestra, singing the title role of Donna Elvira. Jo-Nette has also performed excerpts from operatic roles like Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), Adina from Don Pasquale (Donizetti), Gilda from Rigoletto (Verdi) & Violetta from La Traviata (Verdi). In the Eastern Cape she performed with the Eastern Cape Philharmonic, Rhodes Symphony Orchestra and various solo performances in Port Alfred, PE (Gqeberha) and Grahamstown (Makhanda). These performances included her own production Opera and the Silver screen in 2017 and 2018. She was very set on doing many concerts with her students and kept the Makhanda community at the edge of their seats in her time there.