Minister Meets SA's Got Talent Top Three | Western Cape Government

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Minister Meets SA's Got Talent Top Three

10 November 2010

Dr Ivan Meyer, Minister of Cultural Affairs and Sport congratulated the humble winner of SA's Got Talent, James Bhemgee, the runner up, Constable Madalene Abrahams and the Limited Drum Corps who ended up in the 3rd place in this competition at the Ministry in Cape Town today.

Minister Meyer said: "The DCAS Arts and Culture Component has expanded its footprint in the Western Cape during the past year by making the shift to integrated planning, thus extending the scope of programmes through collaborations and interdepartmental synergy, at both local and district municipal level, as well as extending it to tertiary institutions and organisations. This has produced positive results in terms of new networks and partnerships and reaching a wider audience with fewer resources.

The music genre has forged meaningful partnerships which have elevated the level of training to the performance and showcasing of work on Cape Town's big stages. One such initiative was the Delft music project, which started as a pilot project within a community two years ago. The product, a Jazz Big Band, has performed at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival in April 2010. This process has seen the development of youth from learning to play an instrument and learning to read music and eventually it has started yielding economic rewards and opportunities for them, which otherwise would not have been realised.

Instrument repair is a rare and dying skill, which has been revived through our programme and has provided skills to youth, so that they could generate an income from the acquired skills. The component has made great strides and inroads within the rural areas with the commencement of the Klapmuts programme - collaboration between the Klapmuts Primary School, Backberg Wine Estate and DCAS.

Programmes in music training have also commenced in Piketberg, Elsies River and Ocean View. The indigenous music programme was expanded to include the manufacturing and playing of the indigenous music instruments. There are many more programmes that I would like to share with you, but then we would be here for a very long time.

In recognition of the tremendous talent of these fine young gentlemen and lady standing here before you, I have invited them here to express my support and appreciation for their amazing accomplishments. These finalists, first place, second place and third place have given the Western Cape a clean sweep at the SA's Got Talent competition and this shows me, without a doubt, that the Western Cape has indeed got the most talent to offer.

I would like to congratulate Mr Bhemgee, Mrs Abrahams and the Limited Drum Corps for showing the country that the Western Cape is the most talented. Through their outstanding performance they have positively represented this province in the national competition.

I would also like to take this opportunity to share with you how important arts development is to me, and this Department. We have a number of programmes in place where we develop our youth with musical talents, we grow their talent and help them to have a chance in this world to show off their talents, use their abilities to create business opportunities where possible, and give them the support that they need."

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