General Notes

Mr Schwietering was born into a family where music was part of daily life.  He grew up in Stellenbosch where his most formative teacher was the late Pierre de Groote.  Several scholarships and awards given to him in his matriculation year allowed him to study in Vienna under Peter Guth.

While in Siena he attended the master classes of Franco Guli and Nathan Milstein, and undertook several tours with the Wiener Streicher and the Clemencic Consort.  In 1973 Jürgen entered the Juilliard School of Music where he studied violin with Dorothy Delay and viola with William Lincer.  He was a founding memeber of the Tequila Mockingbird Chamber Ensemble and also performed regularly with the Lincoln Centre Performers' Committee for 20th Century Music.

In 1981 he returned to South Africa to take up the position of sub-leader of the National Symphony Orchestra of the SABC.  Two years later he was appointed first concert master of the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra; he concurrently taught violin and viola at the University of Natal.

In 1989 Mr Schwietering was appointed Associate Professor in the string department of the Faculty of Music at UCT. 

On several occasions he was guest leader and guest principal viola of the CTSO.  He has performed the entire repertoire for violin by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms.  In addition, he has several commercial recordings to his credit and records regularly for the SABC.  In 1991 he became first concert master of the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and joined the Festival Quartet as violist. 

1993 saw the debut of the Schwietering Quartet and in that same year, he became leader of the Cape Town Symphony.