Inside this Newsletter

  11 Editorial Message

MESSAGE FROM THE

DIRECTOR

Professor Nketia

Whenever I meet colleagues abroad, one of the questions they often ask me is “What are you working on?“ for the image most people have of a retired Professor seems to be that of the hoary haired scholar who makes a cubicle in the library his second home as he works on some research problem or  braces himself to write new articles or a book he has “always wanted to write.” It seems that being Director of an International Centre for African Music and Dance is not enough. However, having spent the greater part of my working life doing field work, library and archival research, what I wanted to be on retirement was not exactly this traditional image of a retiree. Nor did I want to pursue the path of the ethnographer who continues to go on the sort of extensive field research trips I undertook at the beginning of my career. The challenges of the milieu to which I was returning after my sojourn in the US required that I do something different. While continuing now and then to write or “to work on something,” I could inspire others to do field research instead of doing everything myself the way I used to do, encourage scholars and artists to make use of the archival materials I had already set up in the Institute of African Studies which could be enlarged through various modes of acquisition, develop a specialized “library” with my own collection of books and other materials as a base for a small institutional reference library, and share my knowledge, experience and reflections with others who might carry them forward, as we collectively confront the practical realities of music and dance in our changing African environment.

In this regard my model of a retired Professor was not Ephraim Amu, the renowned Ghanaian composer who lived to age 94 and whose footsteps I had followed in many directions, but Charles Seeger, a retiree I first met in 1959 during a visit to the Institute of Ethnomusicology at UCLA as a Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation. He was then in his seventies but lived to be an octogenarian. He was a composer and musicologist who had given up composition but was rubbing shoulders with ethnomusicologists because he strongly believed that musicology should embrace the study of all musical idioms and musical cultures of the world and not just Western art music.. Even though he did not like the term ethnomusicology, he moved in the circle of scholars specializing in this field, for it led him to rethink and remodel musicology which he felt was in dire need of a unitary field theory, and shared, in the process, his philosophical reflections as well as empirical solutions to certain problems of methodology, transcription, notation and musical analysis with his immediate colleagues and the wider world of scholarship. In his younger days he had played a similar role of a catalyst when a few international music organizations were being founded and even worked for some time with the secretariat of the InterAmerican Music Union.

I met him again at international conferences and later became a colleague of his in 1969 in the Institute of ethnomusicology at UCLA. He was a keen listener whose face immediately lit up when a statement struck an agreeable chord and thus had his own  subtle way of encouraging young scholars who seemed to him to be on the right path. He was a regular participant in the main seminar of the Institute of Ethnomusicology.  Because of his age and towering personality, he was a venerable figure at conferences and became a peripatetic lecturer for the rest of his life, for he was very much in demand by younger scholars and colleagues who saw him on his retirement mainly as a catalyst  and not as a prime mover, for he had no centre or institute of his own, for he was willing to leave that to others. Naturally it was not so much his philosophical speculations and the aphorisms he developed at this critical phase of his life that caught my imagination as his international outlook, his willingness to look at all kinds of music from the perspective of general theory and above all his continued interaction with colleagues, for he could have chosen the option of retired Professors who work in seclusion in their homes and libraries.

This idea of reaching out to others in the disciplines of music seemed to me appropriate for the situation in Africa where composers may be ethnomusicologists, music educators, cultural officers, members of arts organizations etc., multiple roles I had previously assumed myself It has led me to redefine the subject areas of my field to include development studies in ethnomusicology with particular reference to African music and dance. What is sometimes described as “ethnomusicology in the public sector,” including documentation, preservation, promotion, dissemination of knowledge and materials of music and dance, musi and dance events. and other  activities and issues related to cultural policy etc should be intergral and not peripheral topics..

It is this versatility that was envisaged for ICAMD when it was first proposed, for a Centre for African Music and Dance can operate as a place for the training and presentation of performers as well as the promotion of creativity and performance,  a research institute concerned with disciplinary issues as well as systematization and dissemination of knowledge of African music and dance, or a place for dealing with development issues related to African music and dance.

These functions are of course not mutually exclusive, for training, presentation and performance can be approached as development issues, while documentation, systematization and dissemination of knowledge may have application to training and development. Provision can also be made for development studies in Ethnomusicology or in music and dance as integrative arts  even where the emphasis is on the training of artists or research and documentation. A lot therefore, depends on the needs that are identified, the goals that are envisaged and the areas of emphasis they suggest.

Naturally the choice of scope or emphasis can also be influenced by the background and interests of those who initiate such projects. A musician with conservatory orientation may emphasize the first of the three options, while a scholar concerned with disciplinary issues may choose the second, especially if he is at the early phase or middle period of his research career. Similarly the state of the arts or the presence or absence of certain basic facilities may influence the scope of such a centre. So may the existence of separate departments of music, dance and drama, an Institute of African Studies as well as the prospects of international participation in the activities of a Centre that has considerable flexibility in its modes of operation.

It is because of the foregoing that  the proposal for the establishment of the International Centre for African Music and Dance had to be examined and endorsed by an international group of scholars and Donors at a conference held at the Rockefeller Study and Conference Centre in Bellagio in October 1992 with the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation. Translating their recommendations into viable programmes in the light of constraints of space, facilities, manpower, public support and funding has been the primary concern of the Director and staff of ICAMD and its International Advisory Board

This Newsletter brings to you a consolidated Progress Report of five years of operation of ICAMD made possible through the generous assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Swedish International Development Authority, and the Ford Foundation who saw its potential for promoting international cooperation and understanding while enabling Africa to address ongoing development  issues in the performing arts and the strategies for dealing with them on both national and regional levels.  It has been both an exciting and rewarding experience for all of us at ICAMD, for it has enabled us to explore not only new directions in our work but also various ways of promoting regional and international cooperation through our participation programmes that enable us to establish linkages with artists, scholars and institutions in Africa and elsewhere. Indeed what has kept ICAMD going besides the assistance of Foundations and its routine activities is the constant stream of visitors who interact with us, including those who come for short and long term residencies or as research associates.

I would like to seize this opportunity to thank all those who have contributed in diverse ways to the growth and development of ICAMD in the last five years, in particular the scholars who met in Bellagio, the Administration of the University of Ghana and the Academic Board who welcomed the idea of an International Centre for African Music and Dance, the staff of the Centre who  joined me when it was just an idea to be translated into  action programmes and who have shown great devotion and commitment to its goals, the International Advisory Board that has helped to steer its course and assure its international dimension, colleagues at the School of Performing Arts who have assumed various roles as programme associates or shared their physical facilities with us, Fellows, artists-in-residence and the traditional instructors of the School of Performing Arts and the Ghana Dance Ensemble who serve as instructors and demonstrators at ICAMD workshops and conferences.

J. H. KWABENA NKETIA

History of ICAMD

1. The International Centre for African Music and Dance serves as a focus for national, regional and international cooperation in the study, presentation, promotion and development of African music and dance. Accordingly the establishment of working relations with individual scholars. artists and institutions is given priority

2. In addition to the various categories of membership open to individuals, subregional linkages in Africa are being pursued, in particular with South Africa through Kwazulu University and Konghisa Cultural Centre, East Africa through Kenyatta University, Central Africa through Université Marien Ngouabi which provides a secretariat for FESPAM (Pan-African Arts Symposium and Festival), the East Horn through Department of Oriental and African Studies at the University of Sudan, and Francophone West Africa through INSAAC in Abidjan.

3. Working relations have been established in the US with the World Music Centre at the University of West Virgina at Morgantown, the Music and Dance Departments of Swarthmore College, St Louis African Chorus, the Centre for Black Music Research at Columbia College, Chicago, The School of usic at Michigan State University, East Lansing, and the Internatiuonal Institute at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A conference he Present State of African Music and Dance in the US and the African Diaspora” was reviewed was held at the latter from April 3 to 5 1997.  A US Secretariat of ICAMD has since then been esablished in the International Institute for the coordination of ICAMD projects and related events in the US. The Secretariat has published a brochure and a Newsletter, and opened a website for  information about the activities of the main Centre in Accra and the US Secretariat.

Resource Library

The ICAMD Resource Library now houses over 1250 titles of books including 450 on African music, dance and culture, 30 on dance in general, 400 on western music, theatre and drama, and 370  on social anthropology and political history.  In addition, there are over 140 journals and periodicals, notable among them are Journal of African Music Society, Journal of the International Library of African Music, World Music, Journal of the International Folk Music Council, Bulletin of the International Council for Traditional Music, and a host of others which were personal donations from the Director, sixty-six (66) theses and dissertations on Ethnomusicology, African music and dance, 24 research reports were deposited by the Director, the Senior Research Officer (Mr. K. Ampom Darkwa) and other researchers in the field of African music and dance.  The reports from the Senior Research Officer were as follows; (1) Festivals of the Gods (2) Coded Bibliography of African Music and Musicians and (3) Country Profile (Africa in a Nutshell), 35 essays, dictionaries and encyclopaedias of music, directories of institutions, bibliographies, photographs from field research, and conference papers.  A list of theses and dissertations are available in the library for reference

Donations to ICAMD

ICAMD welcomes donations of books, journals, dissertations, papers, copies of audio visual field recordings of music and dance of African societies in different parts of Africa as well as scores and recordings of contemporary African music.  Donations received so far include the Mary Seavoy collection (of books, field tapes, records, videos, slides, photographs) audio and video recordings of traditional music and dance of Malawi, Venda, the GILLBT recordings of Church music in traditional singing styles, a cassette dubbing of Rattray’s cylinder recordings of atumpan  (drum language), bragoro (puberty songs) made in the 1920’s, a video version of a silent film at the Smithsonian Institution made in the 1920’s by Herskovits in Asokore in Ghana for the Centre’s archive, back issues of the ICTM (International Council for Traditional Music), Yearbook, South African Journal of Musicology

Pan African Video and Audio Collection

There are currently over 1150 audio cassettes, 150 compact discs, 100 reel-to-reel tapes, 30 DAT recordings, 250 video cassettes, and 500 coloured slides in the Audio-Visual Archive, with additional resources being donated each month. 

The collection includes field recordings as well as commercially produced recordings spanning the wide range of traditional and contemporary genres from throughout the African continent as well as the Diaspora.

The Centre's equipment includes the facility for recording on DAT and audio cassettes as well as dubbing reel-to-reel tapes, audio and video cassettes.  A public address system and sound amplifier/mixer is available for conferences and performances.  Video recorders, computers, printers and a colour scanner enable documentation and preservation of research findings and conference proceedings.

PARTICIPATION PROGRAMMES

Conferences and Workshops

4. The participation programmes of

 the Centre (conferences and  workshops) have been well patronized. As a follow-up of the most recent of them devoted to Music and Healing in Africa and the Diaspora, two conference participants from South Africa were invited to return to the  Centre to do a four-month study of some of the issues that emerged. They gave demonstrations and music therapy sessions in several institutions in the Accra area in order to assess the extent to which established music therapy techniques are applicable to the situation in Ghana, the basis of the modifications that may be made, and how future training programmes in this field may be developed. In addition they ran leadership training workshops throughout the country for Ghanaian music teachers, choral leaders and others in order to expose them to South African music, community development approaches, and music therapy techniques.

3. A local conference on African Church Music  was also organized at the beginning of this  year, at the request of the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, to examine, among other things, the feasibility of the Church establishing a Music Institute that would make the development of African musical resources its major concern. Because of the role that the church has played thus far in the evolution of new African art music, two participants were invited from Nigeria to provide comparative data. In response to the needs outlined at the conference, a two week residential course on the Fundamentals of African Church music  was organized by the Centre and the Department of Music from July 3 to 17, 1998 for local composers and conductors of Ghanaian choral music.

Memorial Lectures

4. In order to create wider regional interest in the activities of the Centre, some workshops and seminars of the Centre will be held  whenever a host African countrty can be found. Meanwhile the Centre has been collaborating with various countries in instituting Memorial Lectures in honour of pioneer music scholars and composers. The goal of such lectures is to provide  a forum for annual review of national arts and culture and serve as a rallying point for organizations concerned with the promotion of music and dance. Following the successful  inauguration of the Fela Sowande  Memorial Lecture at the University of Ibadan (in collaboration with the Institute of African Studies and the Theatre Arts Department at the University of Ibadan, ICAL (the International Centre for the Arts in Lagos) and MUSON (Music Society of Nigeria), a Memorial Lecture for Ephraim Amu  of Ghana (1899-1994) was inaugurated on May 26, 1998 at the National Theatre under the auspices of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. The theatre was filled to capacity.

5. A Memorial Lecture planned earlier for Nicholas George Ballanta of Sierra Leone in collaboration with the Ballanta Academy of Music in Freetown had to be shelved because of the Civil war which broke out before the scheduled date of the lecture. A similar lecture for Reuben T. Caluza  of South Africa has not been scheduled because the South African chapter of ICAMD has not yet got off the ground.

OUTSIDE CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS

6. To enable the Centre to enrich its programmes and share knowledge and experience through intercultural dialogue, the Director accepted invitations to conferences and meetings and encouraged the participation of Fellows, staff and associates in similar meetings where appropriate. Conferences and meetings attended in the last two years include the following:

1. Consultation meetings of Ubuntu 2000 in Johannesburg, August 5-7, 1996 and November 17-19. 1996 on the organization of curated Pan African Festival of Art and Culture ( a successor of FESTAC 1977) to be held every four years,

2. International Symposium on Arab and Oriental Influences on African Traditional Music and Dance held in Zanzibar, April 15-19. 1996 organized by the International Music Council in conjunction with the Government of Zanzibar with the support of UNESCO, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA)

3. Pan African Arts Symposium and Festival (FESPAM) held in Congo Brazzaville August 9-15, 1996 organized by the Government of Congo under the auspices of UNESCO and OAU

4. Workshop for the compilation of A Guide for The Preparation of Primary School Music Manual  held in Malawi July  28 -27, 1997 under the auspices of the Culture Division of UNESCO, and the Government of Malawi

5. ISME Africa Group meeting in Durban (ICAMD represented by the Associate Director)

6. International conference on Teaching World Music, May 15-18, 1997 at Dartington College, England

7. Ethnomusicology Symposium on the theme Confluences,, July 16-19, 1997 in  Cape Town, South Africa. A paper on “Traditional Music Theatre in Contemporary Contexts” was presented by a Fellow of ICAMD

8. Consultation in New Orleans on a Film Project on Jazz Funerals in Congo Square,, New Orleans  March 4-10, 1998 convened by Jason Berry with the assistance of the Ford Foundation

9. Conference on Glocal Art in Flanders,, March 19-22, 1998 held in Antwerp and organized by a group of  six Belgian NGOs with the support of the European Commission (DG VIII), The Director combined it with a visit to the Ethnomusicology Section of Tervuren Museum and the  Prince Claus Fond at the Hague where he had the singular honour of being invited for a private meeting with His Royal Highness Prince Claus at his Palace

10. Pan-African Consultation on Cultural Policies for Development March 1998 held in Lome, Togo, and organized by UNESCO in conjunction with the Organization of African Unity, the Bellagio Group, and the Government of Togo

 11. The African Seminar held within the framework of the Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for Development, March 30 -April 2, 1998, held in Stockholm and organized by UNESCO and the Government of Sweden

 12. Conference on Cultural Industries, July 11-13, 1998 in White Oak, Florida, organized by the Gillman Foundation

 13. Congress of the International Music Council (UNESCO) on Music Education in Multicultural Society , July 3-5, 1998, in Arhus, Denmark

14. The 23rd Biennial World Conference of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) on the theme Music Education for a Humane Society   July 19-25, 1998, held in Pretoria, South Africa. ICAMD was represented by one of its Resident  Fellows (who presented a paper on “The Role of Women in Traditional Music Education”), and Hewale Sounds, the ICAMD music ensemble which, according to observer reports, was a resounding success.

Local Conferences

6. The Director has also participated in a number of local conferences and seminars, including the Second International Conference on African Literature, organized by the Institute of African Studies and cognate departments of the University of Ghana, international conference on Mythology  in the World Today  organized by the Goethe Institute and the Institute of African Studies, annual conference of the Ghana Music Teachers Association, and Art Institute for Teachers, a monthly seminar organized by the National Theatre and the Ghana Education Service.

Fellowship Programme

  7. The Fellowship Programme has gone well in spite of the initial administrative handicap caused by the disruption of the academic year, rising cost, unexpected raise in University tariffs for “foreign” students and limitations of space and other facilities. Besides going on field trips and participating in other programmes of the Centre, most of the Fellows have submitted papers on selected topics and deposited other written and audio materials from their respective countries, while those who enrolled in formal courses of the University while working on their own projects have successfully completed those courses. Two Fellows were retained to assist in the compilation of materials for the Africa Volume of the Universe of  Music: A History,  the UNESCO World History of Music project. In addition one of the Fellows has continued working on the computer music and studio recording programmes.

8.  The Centre hopes to continue with the Fellowship Programme as on inquiries keep coming in from many prospective candidates in countries that do not have graduate programmes in music as well as those that want to benefit from the experience of Ghana

Visitors to ICAMD

9.  The Third and Fourth Annual Summer Course in African Music and Dance were organized for overseas scholars and artists jointly by the World Music Centre, College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University at Morgantown and ICAMD from June 30 to July 11, 1997 and  July 20 to August 11, 1998 in Legon.

10. As in previous years, the ICAMD has continued to receive a lot of oversea visitors who drop by at various times of the year, Fullbright scholars, exchange students, and artists, and organized tour groups such as the St. Louis African Chorus hosted by the Centre and which participated in concerts and workshops on campus, Greater Accra Arts Centre, W. E. Dubois Centre and the National Theatre. With the growing interest in multiculturalism, it seems likely that this trend will continue.

11. Important for the Centre is the increasing number of African students and scholars from all three Universities in Ghana who come to use ICAMD library and other facilities, and occasionala students and scholars from other African countries. A group of 13 graduate students and a lecturer from a neighbouring University  -the University of Ibadan- came on a ten day excursion to the centre for lectures and interaction with Fellows of the Centre and other students.

FACILITIES AND SUPPORT SERVICES

12. The development of the Centre’s Reference Library, as well as the Audio-visual Archive and its accessories has continued, except that the volume of acquisitions has had to be limited because of constraints of space. Donations of sound and video recordings hae continued to be received, the largest being duplicates of the field recordings of East African music made by Dr. Solomon Mbabi- Katana with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

13. Video and audio recordings of selected events such as funerals, festivals  as well as the outreach and artistic training programmes of the Centre have continued.

14. The publication programme has lagged  behind because of the absence of a full time Editor. The necessary steps have been taken to rectify this.  Much more has been accomplished in the preparation of musical scores ad transcriptions of texts. Three of the ten manuscripts of computer transcriptions of the scores of traditional drum music prepared by Dr. KONGO Zabana have been published

Organizational Structure

16. To enable the Centre to streamline its organizational structure in the light of the foregoing before embarking on a membership drive in the various categories set out in its brochure, two Consultants who have done similar consultancy for various institutions have been hired to review the organizational structure of ICAMD and make appropriate recommendations, taking into consideration  both the external and internal relations of the Centre as a unit within the School of Performing Arts: Mr. Bergen Peck who is in Arts Education, and Isabel Maria Da Cruz Mosqueira Alves who is in Theatre.. The couple visited the Centre in January 1998 to discover in more detail and at first hand the work of the Centre and ways in which they might be able to advise on its future development, taking into account the possibilities of developing links with music and dance organizations and training institutions not only in the US as at present but also in Europe and elsewhere.

CONFERENCE ON CHURCH MUSIC INSTITUTE

All over Ghana and indeed many parts of Africa, Christian churches are bustling with music. There is greater congregational participation in singing  and a proliferation of  performing groups some of whom are also active in the musical life of their communities. The stimulus for this has come partly from the gradual weakening of the inhibitions of the past and partly from the growing awareness of the power of African modes of expression. Accordingly  various approaches to church music have emerged. African Christians not only have their favourite Western hymns but are also setting some hymns to new tunes while “energizing” and transforming others or creating new ones that suit their own sensibility. Ghanaian Singing Bands that in the early 1930’s specialized in marching songs and choral music in the new art music idiom initiated by Ephraim Amu and sustained by other musicians like Robert. O. Danso, Otto Boateng and their successors are now relinquishing this to church choirs and are fast becoming narrowly specialized in their own type of jubilee songs and songs of praise sustained by regular handclapping, the throb of the bass guitar and the jazz drum. Meanwhile church choirs who have undergone much needed decolonization are now taking over the new literate Ghanaian choral music even though they cannot refrain from showing off now and then with a Western Anthem.

Another very noticeable change is the role that oral tradition is  gradually assuming  in the Church, for side by side with the literate hymns, some of which were memorized at school in the old days,  there is a growing body of songs performed during worship, many of which are circulating by oral tradition through Singing Bands and Prayer Groups whose members pick them up from Charismatic Churches and the new breed of composers who specialize in this kind of music. Some of the younger “progressive” clergy know quite a few of these songs so well that they themselves lead their congregations in singing them during their prayers and sermons. These unscripted songs are waiting in the wings to be included some day, after careful scrutiny, as an Appendix to existing Hymn Books. Transformations, such as those mentioned above, will always go on as modes of worship change or as creative individuals express their religious feelings and sentiments in new songs and share them with others.

Alongside such transformations are qualitative changes, some of which may seem uplifting and progressive, while others may be felt as somewhat degenerative or retrogressive. In all cases the challenges they pose for the clergy,  church groups, conductors,  organists and other instrumentalist are quite considerable. Just imagine the desperation of churches whose Singing Bands cannot keep pace with these new fashions, or bands that do not have instruments and public address systems that enable them to croon into microphones. Just imagine the forbearance of the musical priest who has to put up every Sunday with vocalists who make no difference between singing in a night club or other places of entertainment and singing in church in the context of worship or people who insist on playing in church instruments they have not really mastered.

The Way Forward

The answer to such problems does not lie in looking back to “the good old days” or holding fast to what the early church bequeathed but in finding positive solutions to them. The complete dedication and the magnificent work done by Christaller and his colleagues in Ghana in the nineteenth century in selecting, translating, composing new hymns. compiling and grouping the repertoire of hymns on the basis of themes and contexts, and providing all the information about the sources of the hymns, the authors, and the biblical texts on which they were based can hardly be beaten. What they achieved, however, can be carried forward if contemporary needs and problems are approached in the spirit in which they themselves saw their work.

Christaller, for example, was very conscious of the limitations of his effort even though he translated about two hundred and fifty six hymns and composed fifty hymns of his own, while his colleague J. A. Mader translated 71 hymns and composed 21 of his own which were included in the 1883 edition of the Twi Hymn Book. Incidentally there were also a few 19th century Ghanaian contributions that were included. Simeon Koranteng and Phillip Kwabi of Akropong contributed two hymns each, while Theophelus Opoku contributed five, and David Asante and Sofie Opoku one hymn each.

In his Remarks on the 1883 edition of the Twi Hymn Book, an enlarged version of the first two editions published in 1859 and 1865, Christaller discussed the difficult linguistic problems they continued to face because of the inevitable conflicts between texts and tune and the adoption of Western metrical systems by his team because these were the basis of the hymn tunes they selected. Except for one hymn written by Joh Hus (1373-1415) and the original compositions of members of the church and their missionary colleagues, most of the hymns selected were written by Western authors --many of them Germans -- who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries.  A few other sources were utilized such as the United Brethren’s Hymn Book from which 19 hymns were selected, the repertoire of Praise and Thanksgiving of Emancipated Slaves  from which two  songs were selected, and 13 songs of Fante Christians (Fante Kristofo Nnwom Bi ), but the basic problem remained.  Hence he concluded his remarks as follows :

The time for answering the questions and solving the problems connected with this subject may not yet have come. We content ourselves with having made mention of them. The ancient heathenish Germans had their songs which were, in form and contents, perhaps equally different from the present Christian poetry of the Germans, as native African poetry may be. We have not yet found the laws of native poetry. but if any gifted poet should arise and sing Christian songs going to the heart of the Tshi speaking peoples better than the hymns in this book -- as we hear of such Christian poets in India -we should wish him Godspeed  with all our heart, not minding that the hymns of our making might pass into oblivion. Perhaps both ways will prove practicable and beneficial.

This statement was written by Christaller in August 1878, about a hundred and twenty years ago, while on leave in Schondorf in Germany. What consoled him about the hymns was the fact that “educated Africans like the tunes,” an observation which is as true today as it was in the nineteenth century.  That is why a bi-cultural trend has emerged, something he anticipated through the inclusion of a selection of Fante lyrics in his Hymn Book, which he observed, were based on different poetic principles.

To carry this bicultural solution forward, opportunities must be provided through appropriate institutional framework for Ghanaians of high creative, scholarly, theological, literary and linguistic calibre like Christaller and his colleagues to work on the promotion and compilation of the indigenous component of church music, to turn things around if need be, and not just concentrate on cosmetic changes in the texts and tunes of the existing corpus. It is in light of this that a recommendation for the establishment of a Church Music Institute was accepted by the Synod of the Presbyterian Church at its meeting held in August 1997, for an institutional framework will ensure that this task is approached in earnest alongside pressing normative and practical issues that need continuous  attention.

In view of the major role that the Church has played and continues to play in the evolution of contemporary forms of music in Africa, ICAMD responded favourably to a call to assist in this development by organizing a two day conference in conjunction with cognate departments to consider the feasibility of such an Institute. The conference which took place on January 15 - 16, 1998 was followed up in July  1998 with a two week residential course run by Dr. Asiama and Dr. Asante Darkwa, on the fundamentals of African Church music for composers and choral conductors.    [J.H.N.]

ICAMD International Advisory Board

The ICAMD has established an International Advisory Board, with its members representative of the six major subregions of Africa, as well as Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean.  Board Members include:

Dr. Florence Dolphyne, Professor of Linguistics, University of Ghana, Legon

Dr. E.N. Dodoo, Dean of Faculty of Arts, University of Ghana, Legon.

Dr. Kofi Anyidoho, Professor of English, University of Ghana, Legon

Mr. Mbuyamba Lapwishi, Regional Cultural Advisor, UNESCO, Harare, with Dr. Mufuta of University of Lumumbashi, Zaire, as alternate.

Dr. Khabi Mngoma, Coordinator, South African Chapter of ICAMD, Music Department, University of Zululand, South Africa.

Dr. Mosunmola Omibiyi-Obidike, Director, Insitute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Dr. Charles Nyakiti Orawo, Professor, Department of Music, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya.

Mr. Adepo Yapo, Lecturer, Institut National Des Arts, University of Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

Mr. Ali Al-Daw, Assistant Archivist, Department of Asian and African Studies, University of Khartoum, Sudan.

Dr. Beulah Brown, Research Fellow, Folklore Studies Unit, University of West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston, Jamaica.

Dr. Huib Schippers, Director, Netherlands Institute for Arts Education, Utrecht, Netherlands.

Dr. Kenichi Tsukada, Professor, International Studies, Hiroshima University, Japan.

Dr. Jacqueline C. Djedje, Professor, Department of Ethnomusicology, University of California, Los Angeles, California

Dr. Ruth Stone, Chair, Department of Folklore, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

Dr. Gerard Béhague, Professor of Musicology (specialist in Latin American music), University of Texas, Austin, Texas.

Dr. Lester Monts, Associate Provost and Professor of Music, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Reginonal Secretariats

In view of the rapid growth of ICAMD as a focus of international cooperation, and the need to share in its objectives and programmes beyond its physical location, the creation of a network of regional Secretariats or Chapters has been recommeded by members of the International Advisory Board, a few of whom have taken some initiative in this direction.

Following a conference organized by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in conjuction with the African Music Caucus and ICAMD to review the present state of African Music and Dance in the US and the Caribbean, a US Secretariat which works closely with the Centre at Legon has been set up in the International Institute at the University of Michigan.

·     to serve the collective interest of US scholars and artists in the study and promotion of African Music and Dance

·     to foster close linkages between Africa and the US by developing the Secretariat as an information and resource centre, and

·     to facilitate the organization of periodic seminars, conferences, workshops and special events that bring together specialists in African music and dance.

A proposal by Professor Khabi Mngoma, ICAMD Board member, to set up a South African Chapter along similar lines was endorsed at the 13th South African Ethnomusicology Seminar held at KwaZulu University in November 1995, while arrangements are underway for the establishment of an East African Secretariat which will be located in the Music Department at Kenyatta University and coordinated by Dr. Charles Nyakiti Orawo, ICAMD Board member.

Because of the size of Nigeria and the number of Universities and other tertiary institutions in that country, the possibility of establishing an ICAMD Secretariat in the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan for the promotion of collaborative projects and events in association with the Centre in Legon is being explored by Professor Omibiyi-Obidike, a Board member.  Meanwhile in cooperation with ICAMD, the International Centre for the Arts in Lagos (ICAL), the Music Society of Nigeria (MUSON), and the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Ibadan, she was able to organise the Fela Sowande Memorial Lecture in January 1996 as a national event and hopes to  make it a continuing series.  The Inaugural lecture was given by Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketia, Director of ICAMD.

A linkage programme which brings graduate students from Nigerian Universites specializing in ethnomusicology and other disciplines of music to ICAMD in Legon has also been set up by Dr. Omibiyi-Obidike at the request of her students. It allows them to spend short periods at the Centre to familiarize themselves with its programmes, archival and library resources, and meet the Director, Faculty and other graduate students in cognate departments.  The first of these visits which brought 13 graduate students and one Faculty from the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan took place in Legon from November 18 to 29, 1997.  The programme consisted of lectures, seminars, performances and library and archival research and was organized and coordinated by Josephine Mokwunyei, a Senior Fellow of the Centre.

Music Therapy for Africa

A 1996 meeting between Professor Nketia and South African musician and music therapist, Sharon Katz led to the first International Conference on Music and Healing in Africa in 1997.

The conference was intended to

1) review the cultural foundations of music therapy in Africa and the Diaspora, with particular reference to the form it takes in traditional societies and belief systems;

2) examine the problems and prospects for the development of music therapy in Africa as a field of study and professional practice;

3) discuss the intercultural relevance of the philosophy, methods and context of music therapy practised outside Africa to the situation in Africa; and

4) suggest follow-up studies.

Traditional healers, academics, researchers, ethnomusicologists, music therapists and musicians from 15 African countries and the Diaspora gathered at ICAMD for the conference.

Following three days of intensive presentations and dialogue, the consensus was that further research was needed into the development of a model of music therapy which is appropriate within the context of African society and relevant to the needs of the African continent.

Ms. Katz, who receives her Master’s degree in Music Therapy in the U.S., was commissioned by ICAMD to do the follow-up research.  Sharon has been piloting the use of performance music therapy with the victims of apartheid’s violence and oppression in South Africa for the last six years and developing the practice of African Music Therapy to address the particular conditions and needs within Africa

In January of this year, Ms. Katz and her colleague Marilyn Cohen, who was the Administrator of Mental Health Services for the City of Philadelphia, began their work in Ghana.  Through an initial series of workshops with members of the medical, psychological, social work and education professions, as well as traditional healers, community leaders, musicians and dancers, information was gathered on existing practices and needs.

Based on the preliminary findings, a three-pronged approach will be implemented over the next twelve months:

1) field research in each of the 10 regions of Ghana and selected sites elsewhere on the African continent;

2) interactive workshops and training courses with medical and spiritual healers, educators, musicians and university students;

3) pilot projects with various special needs populations within Ghana.

A Second International Conference on Music and Healing in Africa is now being planned. Anyone interested in participating should correspond with Sharon Katz at ICAMD

COMPUTER TRANSCRIPTIONS OF DRUM MUSIC

      At the School of Performing Arts where ICAMD is located, there are several master drummers who are specialists in the music of their own ethnic groups. They serve as instructors or play  for the rehearsals and performances of students and the Ghana Dance Ensemble.  As in traditional communities, they teach their students to learn to drum by ear or learn to dance to the music through their perception of the details of the music. While this tradition has enormous benefits in terms of aural training  and rhythmic perception, it has long been felt that the learning process could be shortened, not only through recordings that could be listened to frequently at leisure, but also through transcriptions that enable the listener to see what he is listening to. Such transcriptions could serve as aide memoire  for learners, as pedagogical materials for compiling rhythmic exercises, and as materials that may be set to nonsense syllables and performed as spoken texts as is customary in traditional practice. Similarly contemporary musicians interested in creative performance or composition could use such transcriptions in their own way. Musicians could quote some of the materials or derive cells from patterns and subject them to various idiomatic derivations. They could use the score of a drum piece in part or in whole as the rhythm section that supports the melodic parts of a composition in much the same way as drums are used in traditional music.

      It is in light of such practical considerations, rather than the scholarly use of transcriptions for theoretical inquiry and analytical descriptions of music, that prompted ICAMD encouraged Dr. Zabana KONGO, a Senior Fellow of the Centre, to embark on transcriptions of Ghanaian drum music. Dr. KONGO who studied with Simhaa Arom, is versed in the use of computers for “incidence points” transcriptions of instrumental African music a process initiated by Arom.  Beginning with the music played by the master drummers of the Ghana Dance Ensemble, Dr. Kongo has transcribed.

  The music of ten drum ensembles, three of which have been published.  The scores are written in notation familiar to potential users of the materials. Both the full score and the separate individual parts are presented in their basic form, that is, without the addition of accents and other performance symbols that may be idiosyncratic of the style of an individual performer. Rhythms framed within contrasting sonorities are written on either side of a single line or on two lines where appropriate.

To enable the vertical alignments of the different attack or “incidence” points to be readily seen, the transcriptions focus on these where appropriate and not on the total duration of the sounds that emerge. Similarly, analytical commentary or discussion of the interrelations of drumming and dancing and associative meanings fall beyond the scope of the manuscripts as the aim is not to present monographs on drumming but materials for listening, aural analysis and observation, leaving the listener to form his own impressions. One audio cassette tape of all the ten transcriptions is provided along with the first three books of scores of Adowa, Silpw Agbekor and Kpanlogo published for ICAMD by AFRAM Publications (Ghana) Ltd

ICAMD Artists Promote Musics of Africa

As part of its mission to promote African music and dance, the ICAMD  maintains a Resident Artists programme. Resident artists conduct workshops in the musics and instruments of Africa, gives performances of traditional and new compositions arranged for traditional African instruments, and their contemporary extensions.  The Artists are also supported in developing new compositions and choreography.

In July of 1998, the resident group of ICAMD, Hewale Sounds, travelled to the International Society of Music Educators (ISME) in South Africa to perform Ghanaian music and introduce the interrnational community to Ghanaian ryhth ms and traditional instruments such as seperewa, atenteben, gonje and gome.

The repertoire of the group covers mainly a wide variety of rearranged Ghanaian traditional songs from various cultural backgrounds, and original compositions of some members of the group given a touch of innovation to reflect contemporary contexts. Also included are songs from other African countries for example from Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Zambia.

The South African recording and international performing artist, Sharon Katz, is also based at ICAMD this year and is giving concerts, workshops and master classes on South African music.  Sharon also contributed to the Pan African repertoire of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) of Ghana by teaching and performing southern African music with the NSO as part of the African Composer Series.

Several of the musicians from her band, Sharon Katz & The Peace Train, will also be coming to Ghana as resident artists to expand the Pan African aspect of the programme.

Hewale Sounds  and Sharon Katz & The Peace Train  will be touring nationally and internationally as part of ICAMD’s community outreach and education project, giving concerts and conductig workshops with students, teachers and musicians.

Upcoming Events

From October to November 1998, Prof Nketia, Sharon Katz and Marilyn Cohen will be conducting workshops and participating in conferences in several US cities.

In St. Louis, they will give workshops on ancestral African music and instruments and learning African songs at the African Music Conference.  Sharon will also give a concert of African music with the St. Louis Symphony Children's Choir.

At Indiana University they will present a forum on African Music Therapy at the Society for Ethnomusicology.  They will then go to Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and the US Secretariat of ICAMD to give presentations on their work, concerts in African music, and dialogue with colleagues on developments in the field

From January 12-14, 1999, ICAMD will host the UNESCO Conference Folklore.

Meet the Staff of ICAMD

The staff of ICAMD are available to answer your queries, help you identify necessary source materials, and refer you to  researchers and performers in your field of interest.  Please feel free to contact them by fax or e-mail.

Director     -     Prof. J.H. Kwabena Nketia

Associate Director   -    Dr. Asante Darkwa

Administrative Officer - Mr. E.K. Labi

Accounting Assistant - Abigail Sey

Archivist (print media) - Jasper Yao Addo

Archivist (audio-visual) - Maxwell A. Addo

Co-ordinator (Outreach programmes) - Clemence Kosi Adom

Library Assistant - Judith Gyimah Nketia

Library Assistant - Richmond D. Bubuama

Field & Programme Assistants -

 Isaac Kofi Josiah & Osei John Korankye

Programmes Associates:

Research: Ms Sharon Katz

               Ms. Marilyn Cohen

Dance: Professor A.M. Opoku

            Ms. Patience Kwakwa

Drama: Ms. Mary Yirenkyi

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Editorial Message

The ICAMD newsletter is intended to provide information, stimulate research and creative activities, and facilitate linkages among scholars and performers of African music and dance throughout Africa and the Diaspora.  It seeks to maintain a balance between articles of interest to academics, performers and affectionados of African music and dance.  Comments and contributions may be directed to Marilyn Cohen and Jasper Addo, co-editors.

Correspondence

Proposals from individuals and institutions for joint projects in the music and dance of Africa and the Diaspora, applications for membership, notes ans news of music and dance events etc. should be addressed to:

     The Director

     International Centre for African Music and Dance

     School of Performing Arts

     University of Ghana

     P.O. Box LG 19

     Legon - Accra

     Ghana West Africa

     Tel: +233 21 500 077

     Phone/Fax: +233 21 501 392

     E-mail: icamd@africaonline.com.gh / icamd@ug.gn.apc.org

Link to: University of Ghana, Faculty of Arts, Music Department