Mai Music & Sae Announce Scholarship Winner

Mai Music & Sae Announce Scholarship Winner

The world's largest institute for audio education has joined forces with the Maori record label Mai Music to announce the winner of the inaugural He Taonga Waiata Scholarship.

Joshua Ngahihi Lloyd, 24, from Ngati Tuwharetoa, will complete a nine- month full-time audio engineering diploma with the Auckland branch of the SAE Institute.

Founded 25 years ago, SAE has expanded to become the largest audio and multimedia network of institutes in the world. Local SAE graduates are employed by industry leaders such as Kog Tranmissions, York Street Studios, Revolver Studios, College Hill Productions, Lab Studios, Sky TV and TVNZ.

Mai Music general manager Victor Stent says the music industry of tomorrow will be based as much on the experience and skills of its engineers and producers as it will on the artists themselves. This is especially so in the highly competitive genres of hip hop and R'n'B where new 'sounds' or 'beats' are valued as highly as a new voice.

"We recognised that and set about discovering a talent that we could nurture for the future along with our stable of artists," Mr Stent says. "It's simply just another facet of Mai Music's kaupapa to discover and develop excellence in music and to provide role models for those who will follow.

"With SAE, we have a partner whose training excellence is acknowledged worldwide and their global network, superb facilities and international teaching standards are the perfect training environment for our lucky scholarship winner."

SAE Auckland manager Joseph Campus says his company is delighted to be working alongside Mai Music. "We're proud to offer a scholarship to Joshua and give him the opportunity to enter the industry."

Scholarship winner Joshua Lloyd, who works for an audio software company in Auckland, says he's passionate about pursuing a career in audio engineering and he hopes the course will open doors in the music industry.

Mai Music is owned by Mai Media Limited which also runs successful Auckland radio station Mai FM 88.6 and national Maori language news service Ruia Mai.

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