Gerstman, Blanche

b Cape Town, 2 April 1910

d Cape Town, 11 August 1973

South African composer, double bass player, pianist and teacher. Gerstman was brought up by foster parents, whose name she took when she was 12. She studied under William Henry Bell at the South African College of Music, and was the first student to graduate in music from the University of Cape Town. She was thereafter appointed official accompanist to the South Afrian Broadcasting Corporation. Her works began to be performed with some regularity in the Cape in the 1930s. She was appointed a lecturer in harmony and counterpoint at the South African College of Music. In 1950 she became principal double-bass player in the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra, but left shortly thereafter to take up a scholarship to study composition with Howard Ferguson at the Royal Academy of Music from 1950-1952. She returned to the Orchestra in 1953. In 1961, she was appointed to teach harmony and counterpoint at the University of Pretoria, but returned to orchestral playing in 1963 in the Durban Civic Orchestra. From 1964 onwards, she again taught harmony and counterpoint at the South African College of Music, and in 1969 was for a second time appointed principal double bass in the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra. Her oeuvre is primarily vocal, her songs for voice and piano being particularly fine.