Renowned bass-baritone Simon Estes currently lives in New Jersey and Zurich. He has a worldwide following and travels extensively to perform as soloist, in operas and in oratorios. He was in Durban at the end of January to appear in the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra’s first concert of their 2000 World Symphony Season Series. Simon Estes first came to South Africa after Mandela's release and has returned four times (three times in person and once on a CD and a poster when he was too ill to attend!) since. He maintains that Durban is his favourite performance place.

Apart from renewing his acquaintance with close friend and former pupil Bongani Tembe (KZNPO director) who he taught when Bongani was a Fulbright scholar in voice at the Juliard School of Music in New York, Simon Estes found himself guest of honour at the home of the newly-appointed US Consul General to Durban, Craig Kuehl who comes from his home state of Iowa.

Simon Estes set the wheels in motion for a music school near Cape Town which now bears his name. Last year, he organised an exchange programme in which 40 students from the Simon Estes School of Music studied in Iowa high schools. Next fall, ten of these same students will begin studies at Iowa colleges and universities, all of them recipients of full scholarships, thanks to fund-raising by Estes and other prominent Iowans. With co-soloist Anne-Marie Schubert, Simon Estes also organised donations of musical instruments and other supplies and equipment for the school and persuaded Swissair to ship this cargo at 10% of normal cargo rates.