South Africa to host ‘Operalia’ competition final

Published

11 months ago

November 4, 2023

The city of Cape Town in South Africa will on Sunday come alive when it plays host to the final of the prestigious global opera competition, Operalia.

The event will even be more spectacular as two South African opera performers, Siphokazi Molteno and Nombulelo Yende are among the 16 singers who will try to impress the judges to emerge winner.

The 16 finalists were trimmed from an initial entry of 800 people from more than 15 countries including Armenia, South Korea, France, and South America.

In the finale, every contestant will perform with the Operalia founder, Plácido Domingo— a world renowned maestro— and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, assisted by guest conductor Kamal Khan.

On the choice of South Africa to host the 2023 finals of the event, Operalla Vice President, Alvaro Domingo said the country had an “international reputation for the quality of its opera singers.”

The CEO of Cape Town Opera, Alex Gabriel, said hosting the event would further illustrate the remarkable talent of South African opera singers who were taking the world by storm.

Related Topics:Competition Featured Opera Operalla South Africa

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MultiChoice targets illegal streamers in crackdown against piracy

Published

9 hours ago

October 9, 2024

Isaac Dachen

Satellite television services provider, MultiChoice, says it is now targeting illegal streamers in its renewed crackdown against piracy.

Frikkie Jonker, the Anti-Piracy Director for Broadcast and Cybersecurity at MultiChoice-owned Irdeto, in a statement on Tuesday, says the company now uses tools to analyse illegal streams and identify the individuals responsible for streaming pirated DStv content.

Jonker stated that authorities knew who the end-users of these pirate streaming services were and warned that MultiChoice would consider legal action against them once criminal proceedings against such operators had been finalised.

“We are going after the whole ecosystem,” Jonker said in response to a question asking who MultiChoice is targeting.

“The company has carried out several raids in recent months, resulting in the arrest of several suspects allegedly involved in pirate streaming operations.

“Suspects include individuals allegedly distributing pirate streaming devices and login credentials for illegal streaming services like Waka TV.

“We have identification tools that we can use to analyse a stream of a pirate operation. By analysing it, we can say that the stream is using account number ‘123’, and then we take that account down,” Jonker said.

Jonker emphasised the importance of the crackdown, stating that the impact of pirate streaming services on platforms such as DStv Stream and Netflix is difficult to quantify due to their size.

Culture

Online streaming platform Spotify increases price for its Nigerian premium subscribers by 40%

Published

2 days ago

October 7, 2024

Isaac Dachen

Online audio streaming platform, Spotify, has announced an immediate increment in price for its premium subscribers in Nigeria by over 40%.

In a statement announcing the price increase, the platform said the hike in the fee would allow the team to continue innovating on its product offerings and features, providing users with the best experience.

In the notification, Spotify informed that starting from their billing date in November, their subscription price would change from ₦900/month to ₦1,300/month.

The latest price update puts the Premium subscription plan at ₦7,000 ($4.40) monthly, up from the initial ₦5,000 ($3.14), indicating a 40% rise.

The platform had in April, hiked its Premium Plan price from ₦4,400 ($2.76) to ₦5,000 ($3.14).

However, it added that users who do not wish to continue paying for Premium at the new price can cancel via their account page.

Spotify has also introduced Offline Backup to its Premium users globally, allowing them to listen to music offline without needing to download, with the
Offline Backup appearing in the Home feed when users are offline, and can listen to more than five songs once they have offline listening activated.