SAMRO Endowment for the National Arts (SENA) has announced the four young composers who will be competing for two R170 000 scholarships to further their music studies overseas.
The finalists in the two categories are:  Keith Moss and Angela Mullins (Western Art Music) and James Bassingthwaighte and Kingsley Alexander Buitendag (Jazz/Popular Music). Their compositions will be performed during the final round of the competition, at the University of Johannesburg Arts Centre on Saturday, 28 August 2010.

The SAMRO Overseas Scholarships Competition rotates between instrumentalists, singers, keyboard players and composers over a four year cycle. André le Roux, General Manager of SENA, said the organisation was very happy with the response from young composers this year which saw a record number of 22 entries across the two categories. “Following the highest ever number of applications for our composer bursaries at the beginning of the year and now for the Composition Scholarship, it seems that writing music is flourishing in South Africa. Over the last couple of years we became a little concerned that formal education in composition was lacking. Therefore we are pleased that there are not only more composers applying, but also an increase in applications for music research bursaries and, in general, for all music study. In line with this investment in music education is SAMRO’s sponsoring of the publishing course in collaboration with WITS.

 

 

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