Presbytarian hymns to be remixed

Music in recent era is dominating everywhere be it in the church, party, funeral or any other gathering one can think of. In our churches today the worship and praise session is mostly patronized by the entire congregation. The traditional churches that use the hymn books are losing its congregation to the newly springing up Charismatic churches.

The style of worship has a modern touch and due to this most of the youth, more especially are; slowly moving from their mother churches to these new ones mostly because of their unique style.

Richard Harry Kofi Quaye Essandoh, the music director of Redemption Presbyterian Church at Tema Community 9 who has been directing the Church Choir for barely ten years now, have taken it upon himself to remix the Presbyterian hymns to give it a modern touch. His main motive for the remix is that: “the youth of the Presbyterian Church were moving slowly to the new churches due to the way our hymns are”, he stressed. He decided to revive it by blending it with the secular beats to give them the flavor they want and also to evangelize to the world.

Kofi Essandoh hails from Swedru and was born, baptized and confirmed into the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in Swedru. He is a graduate of the University Of Ghana School Of Performing Arts where pursued a course leading to the award of a General Diploma of music and a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

He says; “I owe the Basel Missionaries who carried the Gospel to the hinterlands so I dedicate my 24-tracked album arranged in the “Basel Praise”, “Basel Live worship”, “Basel Ballard worship” and “Basel Reggae” to them”.

Aside all these duties Kofi Essandoh is the director of Joint Church Youth Band in Tema Community 7 and sometimes helps the Harbor City Mass Choir led by Nii Okai a renowned gospel musician. The project manager is been Francis Annor Boakye the President of Voices of Redemption, the group that backed the entire album. He is married to Mrs. Augustina Korkor Essandoh and blessed with a son Ferdinand Kofi Kum Essandoh.

To him the aim of this remix is gradually becoming real because the album is now becoming popular among the Presbyterian Church of Ghana starting from the Tema Branches of the Church.