Bridget Rennie-Salonen
Flautist
Flautist Bridget Rennie-Salonen is a well-known performer, pedagogue, researcher, and musicians’ health practitioner. Bridget has appeared as soloist with several SA orchestras. As the Solo Principal Flute of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra for many years, she was the recipient of the prestigious Ben & Faye Carklin Award for Artistic Excellence. Recent awards include Fiesta, Silver Ovation, Fanie Beetge Academic Prize, and Oppenheimer Memorial Trust awards. As a freelancer, Bridget is the principal flute of the Cape Town Festival Orchestra, guest principal with the Free State Symphony Orchestra, Baroque traverso flautist with the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra, and frequent chamber musician. Interested in integrating optimal artistic performance with well-being and health promotion, her research includes musicians’ health education and health literacy; somatics; sensorimotor retraining; and musicians’ performance psychology.
Bridget is Postdoctoral Fellow, Part-time Senior Lecturer, and Head of Woodwinds at Stellenbosch University; holds certificates in the Essentials of Performing Arts Medicine and Functional Movement Anatomy; is Licensed Body Mapping Educator and Training Mentor; is on the international Musicians’ Health Literacy Consortium; is committee member on the International Society for Music Education’s Instrumental and Vocal Teaching Forum; and chairs the SA Performing Arts Health Association. Bridget is also an experienced external examiner, adjudicator, and journal reviewer. She is highly sought after as a flute pedagogue, and many of her former students have excelled in competitions and in overseas studies, won scholarships for study abroad, and now occupy key performance, entrepreneurial, and educational positions in the SA music sector.