February 27, 2017 - The recently formed Ashesi Chorale held its maiden concert, dubbed A Night of Traditional African Folk Music, on the Archer Cornfield Courtyard. The focus of the concert, which featured nationally acclaimed Tema Youth Choir and the Berekuso Music Project, was to inform and remind the community of the value of traditional African folk music.
The concert, organised with support from the Humanities and Social Science Department, treated the audience to a blend of traditional folk music from across Africa performed by the Ashesi Chorale group, the Tema Youth Choir and the Berekuso Music Project choir. Each piece performed came along with a summarized reading highlighting the author and history of the song.
“The value placed on music as an art, in Ashesi, is rather low, so we started the Ashesi Chorale to help fill this gap,” explained Sebastein Dakey ‘20, co-founder of the group. “On the other hand, our traditional folk music is slowly dying out, so we hoped to use the concert as a way to help people look back on our music, and also remind ourselves of our heritage. So, we hope by reminiscing on songs from the good old days, they would remind us of the life-lessons that they came with.”
A year ago, a group of students and alumni started the chorale group to provide a platform for music enthusiasts and chorale music lovers to explore their talents and interests outside the classroom.
“Forming the choral group has been a learning process,” said Joshua Atsu Aherdemla ‘16. “While most people joining the group had no experience with chorale music whatsoever, it was an opportunity for us, as founders, to learn to push ourselves and everyone else to a respectable level.”
Beyond the entertainment and education, the group hopes the choral group and its performances through such concerts will help create not only a new buzz on campus, but also help celebrate diversity in an exciting light.
“We should be able to understand where songs come from - the stories behind them,” explained Derick Omari, co-founder of the choral group. “We hope this draws the community together more strongly and we can learn to appreciate each other and our diverse backgrounds.