More about Anne

Born in a small seaside town at the bottom of South Africa, music has always featured in Anne's life. She was just two years old when she lined up her uncles to ‘conduct’ them as they sang. Her father was an organist who also trained choirs and Anne attended many of his rehearsals and performances.She remembers long, hot summer evenings where the family gathered in the front room to sing and play the piano. Anne and her family moved to Johannesburg, where she began taking piano lessons. Aged 13, she took up the violin as well, and was soon performing with the National Youth Orchestra of South Africa and the Youth Orchestra of the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

After matriculating from The National School of Art, Ballet, Drama and Music, Anne went to university, to study music in education, and while there met the man who would become her husband, musician Dana de Waal and they embarked upon a life filled with making music.  Musical highlights include performing at The Royal Albert Hall, London, to celebrate ten years of democracy in South Africa and to raise funds for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund; singing at the merging of Anglo American and Anglo Gold to the accompaniment of 2000 drummers; and perching on a precarious stage in the wild bush of Mpumalanga as the sun went down and large cast iron pots bubbled on open fires cooking crocodile and wildebeest, as they sang. ​

​

Anne and her husband and two children immigrated to the UK in 2001. Adjusting to a new life in a new country was one of the most difficult things she had ever done, but finding her feet in the world of music gave her a solid foundation from which to work. 

She took over conducting Imari Chorus in 2020 just before Covid and Lockdown. What started as a rocky online journey has ended in delight as she moves onward and upward to new musical heights with the wonderful members that make up Imari Chorus. 

​

​