The Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, will be the guest speaker at the fifth anniversary of the Dagara Music and Arts on Sunday, July 3, 2005.

The Director of the Centre, Mr. Bernard Woma, who disclosed this to the press ahead of the anniversary, announced that the centre had put together a comprehensive programmed to mark the day.

Located at Medie, near Accra, the Dagara Music Centre offers a unique opportunity for both Ghanaians and foreigners to learn not just Dagara music but also the various forms of traditional music, dance and drumming.

In addition, talented teachers from the surrounding community offer courses in Kente weaving, batik and tie and dye making, drum making and blacksmithing at the centre.

Mr. Woma said the centre which was established in 2000, had so far trained over 200 foreign students from various universities in the United States, Europe and Asia.

According to him, individual professors, lecturers and private foreigners and Ghanaians had also undergone training at the centre which, for most of them, especially Anthropology students, formed part of their academic work.

Mr. Woma recalled that in 1999, in the interest of sharing his knowledge with a larger group of people, he opened the centre, where students lived and pursued studies in traditional drumming, dancing, xylophone music and visual arts.

He said in 2000, 23 students and professors from the Bowling Green State University in Ohio formed the inaugural class of the centre.

Mr. Woma said he established the centre to promote Ghanaian traditional music, especially the mallet instrument, which is the xylophone, and also to promote and popularize indigenous music.

He said he was happy that he had been able to expose Ghanaian culture to foreign students and help eradicate the wrong perception about Africa in general and Ghana in particular.