Music brings together Minnesota Orchestra musicians, South African students

It may have been Saturday morning, but hundreds of students, teachers and parents crammed into the Eurocon Primary School in Elsies River — just outside Cape Town, South Africa — to welcome members of the Minnesota Orchestra.

The orchestra's two-week tour is taking the musicians to a total of five cities before its done. On Friday night, the players performed to a packed house at Cape Town City Hall. Yet they played just as seriously Saturday for the grade-schoolers and their families in the hard-worn but carefully tended concrete building miles from the bright lights.