African music flows through Garth's veins
A Namibian’s passion for African music led to the founding of the African Music Academy of Canada in Edmonton, where he is at the helm of affairs.Garth Prinsonsky, also known as Garth Prince, has been sharing his passion with young audiences in Canadian schools for years. He is also currently a lecturer in music management at MacEwan University in Edmonton.
The academy was registered in September last year.
“Step number one in the first year was to recruit a board of directors and find people who believed in this vision. I wanted a variety of people who work for school boards or even universities here in Canada, and people who have other types of artistic experience. As well as people of African descent, not just Namibians, because we are entering an area where we also represent other African countries,” he says.
On the decision to expand, Garth says research he did for his studies at MacEwan prompted the decision.
“We found when we looked at the impact that the work that I did as an individual, for example, you can measure the number of audience members we reach – we were reaching about 20 000 people a year with our programme.
“It was already starting to indicate that, because we were reaching so many people, it might be a good idea to involve more people in the decision-making process.”
“Since the impact we had was more like an organisation, we decided to follow an organisational structure.
“I would say it’s better for accountability and just having more people on board who can make a decision is always good,” he says.
Garth says the academy has been operating from various school locations in recent months. However, they are keeping their fingers crossed for a deal with a larger arts organisation that can provide them with a permanent location.
He says it’s his new team that makes these kinds of events possible.
“There’s no way I could have formed these big partnerships.
“The reason the arts organisations trust us more now is that there’s an added level of accountability. We have a lot of qualified people, some of whom are more qualified than me, working with me.
“Some of them are in accounting and other areas and they oversee these things,” he says.
He says of his opportunity at MacEwan: “I did that job for years, but with Covid I went back to university and studied for a diploma in arts and cultural management at the university.
“In choosing this direction, I tried to think about what kind of legal structure would be best for the vision that I had, which was to do it on an even larger scale.
“I had to know all the legal possibilities and structures here in Canada, because I didn’t grow up here. It’s one thing to say I’m going to start a company or a project, but it’s another thing to understand the financial side and the legal side, so I wanted to be qualified in those things.”
However, when he submitted his final work for his diploma in December last year, he was offered a new opportunity. “When I submitted my work to the university, they reviewed the work I had done up to that point – including the Juno Award, of course. They contacted me and asked if I could teach a course on management in the music industry.”
Following the huge success of his children’s album Falling in Africa in Canada, the album and accompanying picture book, Grazing Back Home, won him the Canadian Juno Award for Children’s Album of the Year in 2022.
The Juno Awards are presented by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to recognize outstanding achievements in the music industry. – [email protected]