Thorn wins "door opening" competition

Jazz performance student Michael Thorn's career has hit a high note after he won the African Music Essay Writing competition, organised by the South African College of Music.

This means his 20-page essay will be published in the Journal for African Music, an unusual thing for an undergraduate student.

The essay, which was part of Thorn's major subject, African music, is about his African drumming experience with the Team Spirit group.

According to Thorn (30), writing essays was a bridging exercise in which he also transcribed a Jembe drum ensemble piece in western music connotation to make it readable to African music scholars.

"This will open doors for other people to understand Ghanaian Jembe drum ensemble music, especially people educated in Western music," he said, adding, "I'm glad that the information will be useful to a wide range of people."

Thorn believes publishing the article will open doors.

"This will put me in good stead if I want to pursue an academic career."