Breaking News: Tic Tac Makes Ghana Proud &...

On August 27, 2006, Laurel-based musician Kwame Ansah-Brew will present a Christian jazz concert at 11:00 am at Scotchtown Hills Elementary School, 15950 Dorset Road, Laurel, 20707. Admission is free and the concert is under the auspices of the Agape Life Ministries which holds its Sunday worship services at the school.

The Fritete Afro Jazz Gospel Band, led by Ansah-Brew, is an offshoot from his Fritete African Drum and Dance Ensemble. His gospel band?s sound includes the electric keyboards, saxophone, bass guitar, drum set, and of course African instruments such as shakers, bells, xylophone, string instruments and traditional African drums.

The gospel band?s repertoire includes instrumental gospel inspiration taken from the old traditions of African traditional hymns and praise songs which appeal to a wide variety of listeners. Afro Jazz is a Ghanaian genre of music?a fusion of Afrobeats with Western instruments. The concert on August 27 will be recorded for release on CD in October.

?As a professor in the music department at Goucher College, and the Africana Studies department at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC),? Ansah-Brew says, ?and as a performer at the Smithsonian, Wolftrap and the Kennedy Center, I have come to believe that music is an ever-evolving experience that can encompass new transformations and form new audiences with every decade.?

A traditional musician who began his career at the age of 7, playing appellations to the Chief in the royal palace, Ansah-Brew has made continuing the cultural traditions of the past his lifelong goal. A love of traditional Ghanaian music and dance, lead to a Diploma in Dance from the University Of Ghana School Of Performing Arts. Then, Ansah-Brew brought his talents to the United States to share this rich heritage.

Ansah-Brew began his cultural journey in the U.S. at SUNY-Brockport (State University of New York), where he studied dance and West African percussion with Clyde Alafiju Morgan and Khalid Armed Saleem in the Dance department. Since 1995, Ansah-Brew has been performing with actor and musician Kofi Dennis in the Anansegromma Total Theater Company, which specializes in educultual entertainment for school children, preschool through grade 12.

?I believe that every people?s body of musical knowledge and every people?s musical instruments are a gift from the Creator,? Ansah-Brew says, ??and, as such, I believe it is a just response for us to praise Him with those musical gifts. We should not discard the instruments our past, but utilize them in our modern day praise. Psalm 150, verses 3-6 are special verses to me; they speak of praising the Lord with the sounding of the trumpet, the harp and lyre, the tambourine and with dancing, strings and flute, with the clash of cymbals.?

Ansah-Brew is married to Josephine Ansah-Brew and has three children: Kofi, Acosua and Ofosua.