IN HAMBURG in the Eastern Cape, music occasionally rolls across the village from a modest building in which a group of 40 primary and high school pupils play together in an orchestra of violins, violas, cellos, marimbas, djembe drums, saxophones, recorders, flutes and oboes. Their hypnotic range includes traditional Xhosa, classical and popular music.The Keiskamma Music Academy has 120 Xhosa first-language students between the ages of seven and 21, all from disadvantaged rural schools. The Keiskamma Youth Orchestra was established to help them play and study music as a vehicle to achieving their full potential."I always wanted to work in a sector that has a profound impact on people’s lives, but I never imagined that this would take me to SA," says the head of the academy, Anthony Drake.DRAKE graduated with an honours degree in music from the University of London in 1997 and completed a master’s degree in music performance in 2009 from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Da...
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