UKZN Music Student Wins 2014 SAMRO Overseas Scholarships

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UKZN Master of Music student Mr Prince Bulo recently won the prestigious 2014 Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) Overseas Scholarships Competition in the Jazz Music category. He received the R170 000 scholarship to further his music studies abroad where he plans to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston in the United States, followed by a series of master classes in music production.

Bulo also snagged the inaugural Surendran Reddy clazz Award for young composers worth R10 000. Reddy was a boundary-crossing South African composer, pianist and teacher who passed away in 2010. He termed his signature style “clazz” – a fusion of classical, jazz, traditional African music, mbaqanga and other types of world music.

Speaking about winning the two awards, Bulo said it was a ‘fantastic opportunity’.

But it was an opportunity he very nearly missed. ‘My Apple Mac had crashed three days before the cut-off date for the competition. All that I had been working on for months was gone. I called the SAMRO foundation and was told not to give up and I was encouraged to create a whole new portfolio in three days.’

Sleepless nights and hours of hard work led to Bulo’s work Bass’d in Africa being submitted. The composition impressed the judges on the night of the competition and landed him the coveted scholarship.

The SAMRO competition took place at the Wits Great Hall in Braamfontein where four scholarship finalists battled it out with their original compositions during a special concert evening.

Professor Jürgen Bräuninger of the Music Discipline said: ‘Prince Bulo is indeed a great role model and follows in the footsteps of numerous other highly successful past UKZN music students.’

Bulo advised other up-and-coming musicians to realise that one’s work doesn’t go unnoticed and never to give up or give in to pressure.

Bulo plans on working with his role models in the industry in the future and will be playing bass on the Clash of the Choirs SA album.

Melissa Mungroo