Highlife Wins Colorado

After months of careful selection and thorough rehearsal of material for the annual Colorado University African Ensemble concert, Dr. Kwasi Ampene works himself into a near frenzy on performance nights. Beating a dondo drum or conducting with a whisk, he jumps, runs and rhythmically punches the air with real zest.

The concerts, which started in 2000, have been effective vehicles for Dr. Ampene to take highlife to an international audience. His spirited showing on stage could make one think that performing popular music is his full-time occupation. The man, however, spends a lot more time in university lecture rooms across the United States.

Dr. Ampene is a professor of ethnomusicology at the College of Music, University of Colorado-Boulder. He has also been visiting lecturer at other universities including Michigan-Flint, Indiana State and Pittsburgh where he teaches specialist courses in areas such as Sociology and Aesthetics of the Musics of Africa and the African Diaspora. His book on the creative process in 'Nnwonkoro' (dedicated to the late Efua Abasa) was published recently by Ashgate Publishing Limited in England.

Though the pull of academia is strong on Dr. Ampene, it has been hard extricating himself from the world of popular music performance.

After all, he was into that long before going to the US for his Masters and PhD degrees at West Virginia and Pittsburgh Universities respectively. Between 1980 and 1990, he co-wrote material and played keyboards on recordings by Prince Osei Kofi, Seth Asiedu and Nana Kwame Ampadu.

With what he had gleaned about the music scene at home and the insightful knowledge of what pertains on the international front, Dr. Ampene is firmly convinced that Ghanaian musicians could make better impact on foreign markets if they build on local music traditions.

"You should know your roots and use that as a foundation. Everybody needs a frame of reference. Osibisa made it big world wide because they did not go to foreign lands to ape their music. They played their own mixture they called criss-cross rhythms but the roots were from home. We have all the raw material at home".

Dr. Ampene is, no doubt employing some of that raw material in his work in the US. That's what excites dozens of young American musicians to keep in rhythm with players like Agya Koo Nimo, Okyerema Asante, Kakraba Lobo and Mac Tontoh who have all be invited by Dr. Ampene at various times to Colorado as guest artistes with his African Ensemble.

Dr. Ampene hopes that with the right sponsorship, he would be able to bring the Ensemble on a perfomance tour of Ghana. The main point he would be trying to make with such a venture is: Ghanaian Music, especially highlife, can go places if properly presented.