Since I was young I gravitated towards that which is logical, mathematical and creative - example. As I grew older, it became clear that I had a strong interest in music along with maths, science and all things technical.
My father, who passed away when I was young, had his PhD in Electrical Engineering and I was inclined to follow in his footsteps. I did very well in maths in matric and was offered an entrance scholarship to study Engineering at UCT.
But… I was simultaneously pushing my own boundaries with music. Towards the end of high school I realised that I had a great love for working with music and a desire to see how I could grow my skill set and figure out what I could do with it. I was also offered an entrance scholarship to study a BMus in Jazz Performance at UCT, with a focus on trumpet. I chose to follow this journey, knowing I would always regret it if I didn’t take this path and pursue it fully.
Since then I’ve worked as a professional musician in many shapes and forms. From live performance to studio sessions, from jazz big bands to rock and pop outfits. I continue to play with my 5 piece brass dance band called “The Nomadic Orchestra” with whom I’ve played for many years, toured to many festivals, and played to full-house Kirstenbosch audiences. Kirstenbosch audiences.
I’ve also always found huge meaning and purpose in education. I tutored maths and science groups during and after high school, and as I developed in my music career after school, I started teaching music lessons and directing bands at numerous schools in Cape Town. I love breaking down concepts and being involved with people’s skills development and growth.
Along with my performance work, teaching music became a huge part of my life and one that I will always treasure. One of the schools I worked at, Kronendal Music Academy (KMA), deserves a special mention. KMA runs an extra-mural music program, and caters to children who would otherwise not have had access to learn music. After working as a teacher at KMA for a year and a half, I became the Head of Music there. I learnt a lot about management skills in this role - being involved in the coordination of over 100 students and about 15 staff members.
I have found all the work I have done since graduating from university extremely meaningful, but in the last few years I have felt a growing urge to learn more and develop my skill set. I also realised that I was looking for more stimulation from a mathematical and logical problem solving perspective.
The initial lockdown in 2020 was a turning point. Up until that point I was used to working non-stop from early morning to late evening. With schools shutting down and the music industry on pause, I suddenly had a lot of extra time in the day. Writing code was something that I had been dabbling in over the years, but from then on I took every opportunity to work through online courses and teach myself various coding technologies.
I taught myself through project based learning, and at one stage I was writing a small application every day and trying to use it as an example to practice new concepts in writing code. Over a period of 6 months I had written over 50 different applications. I then began to work on bigger projects with the time that I had - see projects page.
As of 2022 I am fully dedicated to the journey of coding and I am focusing my full time on it.