Accra,- 8 June The African Youth Orchestra, youth wing of the Pan African Orchestra (PAO) last night held music lovers spellbound with a performance which many say can pitch the amateurs against their mentors in any future battle for honours. Although they were trained and directed by Nana Abiam Danso who founded the professional orchestra, the youth orchestra, made up of 40 school children aged between nine and fourteen, played the PAO’s repertoire with such brilliance that it was difficult to distinguish which of the two groups was performing. The original Pan African Orchestra is a 30-piece band which specialises in what musicologist Nana Danso calls ” the neo-classical” form of African music. The orchestra’s trade mark may be found in its strict compliance with traditional African musical format while using traditional African musical instruments. The African Youth Orchestra, like its parent band, lined up an awesome ensemble of instruments which included ten ateteben (Akan flutes) all played by girls, two gyiles (fulani flutes), two African zylophones, three pairs of ‘atumpan’, ‘fontonfrom’ and ‘kpalogo’ drums and a variety of traditional percussion instruments. “Considering their tender ages, I would say they are better than their seniors,” said Mrs Korkor Amarteifio, Deputy Director of the National Theatre, after listening to ‘bawa’, a Dagarti recreational piece which Nana Danso composed. The PAO version of Bawa, rendered in ‘ateteben’ has been popularised in Ghana as the signature tune for the television programme ‘Global Report’. The sensation of the night was nine-year-old Kwabena Darko, an elementary school lad whom Danso says is “the key man” and the time keeper for the group. Playing the bells and percussion, Master Darko is so smallish that he had to stand on a stool to level up in height with the rest of the orchestra during the two hours that they performed. The night’s performance marks the first anniversary of the formation of the youth orchestra and also serves as an important trial for an invitational performance in South Africa next August. The children borrowed extensively from the senior orchestra’s repertoire, playing new compositions or re-arranged tunes (by Nana Danso) such as Osibisa’s ‘Music For Gong-gong’, ‘Adawura Kasa’ and ‘Sisala Sebew’. Nana danso told GRi backstage that the African Youth Orchestra which he helped put together is “an experimental project in music education which focuses on the applied areas of music as an art. ” What you have seen today is part of an attempt to inculcate a more
comprehensive musical culture in the youth. Here is something which we believe will draw their attention away from the Michael Jacksons, the Bobby Browns and other unAfrican models,” he said. “In terms of their age, skill and dedication, I am yet to see any group like this in the whole wide world. I insist that there is nothing like this anywhere,” said Mr Afari Aboagye, Administrator for both senior and junior orchestras. The night’s bill also included a performance by the Dance Factory, an adult dance ensemble whose near-acrobatic dances were all choreographed and directed by Adjetey Sowah, the 1986 Malibu World Dance Champion.
