From District Six to Top Hollywood Film Composer, Dr Trevor Jones Receives Presidential Honours

Born in District Six, Cape Town, years before forced removals shattered families and bulldozers erased an entire community, the young Trevor Jones decided to become a film composer, and now at age 77 he has received one of South Africa’s highest honours from President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The internationally acclaimed film composer was awarded the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver at the National Orders ceremony held in Pretoria on Tuesday 19 May 2026. The Presidency said Dr Jones was being recognised for his “contribution to musical arts and cinema through his composition of highly acclaimed scores for internationally successful films, and for opening his home in London as a place of refuge for many comrades of the liberation movement.”

District Six Boy Falls in Love with Cinema

For many South Africans, especially those connected to Cape Town’s creative spaces and those living on the Cape Flats, the recognition feels deeply personal. It is not only an acknowledgement of a remarkable international career, but also of a man who never fully disconnected from the place where his story began.

Dr Jones was born in District Six in 1949 into a working-class Coloured family, and like many families during apartheid, his family was later displaced under the Group Areas Act. His upbringing was marked by hardship, poverty and instability, yet from an early age he had already decided he wanted to become a film composer.

That dream may have sounded impossible for a 6-year-old child from District Six during Apartheid South Africa, but Jones pursued it relentlessly. As a child, Trevor Jones lived close to the Gem Cinema in Woodstock and that is where his love for film was born. The theatre was so old and worn out that there was often a loss of the soundtrack, which caused him to realise its power.

At just 10 years old he earned a municipal bursary to study music at the South African College of Music. In 1967 he received a scholarship to London’s Royal Academy of Music, beginning a journey that would eventually place him among the most respected film composers in the world.
After working for the BBC for a few years, in 1974, Jones attended the University of York from which he graduated with a master’s degree in Film and Media Music.

Global Rise and Film Career Highlights

Though until now Dr Jones has himself not yet won an Oscar for scoring a feature film, he had gotten recognition from an the Academy Awards quite early in his career.
At the National Film and Television School where Jones studied for three years on general film-making and film and sound techniques, he wrote the music for twenty-two student projects.
One of these films was the 1981 short film “The Dollar Bottom”, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. That’s when the big project offers started pouring in.

Over the next five decades, Dr Jones built a body of work that shaped the sound of international cinema. His scores for films such as The Last of the Mohicans, Mississippi Burning, In the Name of the Father, Notting Hill, The Dark Crystal, Excalibur, Runaway Train, The Mighty and Labyrinth became recognised around the world.

He collaborated with legendary filmmakers including Jim Henson, Michael Mann, Alan Parker and John Boorman. His work also brought him into creative spaces alongside artists like David Bowie, Sting, U2 and Sinéad O’Connor. Along the way, he conducted some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Yet despite a career that placed him at the highest levels of global entertainment, Dr Jones has consistently maintained strong ties to South Africa and particularly to Cape Town’s creative community. That ongoing connection is one of the reasons his recognition resonates so strongly with so many.

Impact Through Music Exchange

For many younger musicians and creatives on the Cape Flats, Trevor Jones is not simply a Hollywood success story. He is somebody who comes back, shares knowledge and actively invests his time in mentorship. Through Music Exchange (MEX), a non-profit of which Dr Jones is a board member, widely known for its annual MEX Conference, the award-winning composer has spent years speaking to and mentoring emerging creatives from South Africa.
Music Exchange founder Martin Myers, who nominated Dr Trevor Jones for the Order of Ikhamanga, has long highlighted both Jones’s international stature and his commitment to uplifting younger talent.

Bruinou.com, through partnering with Music Exchange, has also helped strengthen that connection by creating awareness of MEX, its regular masterclasses and workshops, and by annually making the MEX conference accessible to a few selected young music industry aspirants from the Cape Flats who might otherwise not have been able to attend. MEX is also where we first encountered the internationally renowned composer Dr Trevor Jones, and it is MEX that creates spaces where up-and-coming artists and young music industry hopefuls can directly interact with world-class luminaries.

Commitment to Education and Legacy of Mentorship

Dr Trevor Jones first returned to SA as a keynote speaker at MEX in 2013 and has continued participating ever since. In recent years he has also travelled with former Island Records CEO Marc Marot to help mentor South African artists and music industry hopefuls. While many internationally successful figures eventually distance themselves from their roots, Jones has repeatedly chosen to pour his experience back into the next generation.

His commitment to education and mentorship is deeply personal. Reflecting on his own journey previously, Dr Jones explained that his education was only possible because of bursaries, scholarships and grants that opened doors for him. He has often spoken about the importance of creating those same opportunities for others.

Over the years he has mentored several major figures in film music, including Academy Award-winning composer Steve Price and acclaimed Italian composer Dario Marianelli. More recently, he has reportedly turned down some traditional commissions to focus more on mentorship and development work.

WATCH: Trevor Jones Carte Blanche Interview

National Recognition Journey to Presidential Honours

Long before this latest honour, Dr Jones had already been recognised in South Africa for his contributions to music and film. In 2019 he received the Ministerial Lifetime Achievement Award from the Western Cape government at the Cultural Affairs Awards hosted at Artscape. He also received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Cape Town.

Still, the Order of Ikhamanga carries a different kind of national significance. The National Orders are South Africa’s highest official honours and recognise individuals whose work has had a lasting impact on the country and the world. Dr Jones joins a distinguished 2026 group of recipients that includes figures from music, sport, literature, science and public life.

Among those honoured this year are rugby coach Rassie Erasmus, musicians Jonathan Butler and Oskido, author Dalene Matthee, scientists Professor Salim Abdool Karim and Professor Tulio de Oliveira, as well as activists, top-achievers and intellectuals recognised across the various National Orders categories.

In Dr Trevor Jones’s case, the honour recognises more than musical excellence. It recognises resilience, perseverance and the extraordinary distance travelled from a childhood marked by the advent of full-blown Apartheid and hardship to the world stages of cinema and orchestral music.

Martin Myers on The Journey to Recognition

After receiving his Order of Ikhamanga award, Dr Trevor Jones said he was overwhelmed, humbled and proud, and hoped his journey would inspire the next generation of creatives to strive for success.
Dr Jones also credited long-time friend, famous publicist and music manager, Martin Myers, for lobbying for the recognition.

Speaking to us at Bruinou.com the day before the awards, Martin Myers made a point of reminding us of how significant it is that Dr Trevor Jones was from a poor background in District Six. He said that it is especially important that our younger readers see what can be achieved through hard work, dedication and not missing opportunities to grow in their chosen career.
“Aside from hard work and dedication, young people should never miss opportunities to get into spaces where they can engage with experts in their chosen careers.”
“It is the same as when we create opportunities for young music industry hopefuls with the likes of Trevor Jones and others through MEX.”
“After all, Dr Jones got his education in music because he chose not to miss the opportunities that became available to him.”

After the awards, Myers, describing the composer as a mentor, told IOL: “It was quite a journey.”
“I started working on that process in 2019, about six years after Dr Jones came back to SA.”
“We have been close friends for a very long time and he is also very close to my wife Razia.”

“I really wanted to get him honoured and awarded so that kids growing up can see if you put your head down you can achieve these things.”
“He is one of the top five composers in the world and it’s quite remarkable he received his flowers while still alive.”

Dr Trevor Jones Inspiring The Next Generation

For many from our communities that are too often defined only by struggle and societal ills, the story of Dr Trevor Jones is powerful motivator. He is living proof that brilliance can emerge even from a place authorities once tried to erase. From District Six to Hollywood, and now to the Union Buildings to receive one of the nation’s highest honours, Dr Trevor Jones’s journey stands as both a personal triumph and a reminder of the creative greatness that has always existed within our often marginalised communities.