The National Symphony Orchestra of Ghana plays Ghanaian Classics
Negotiating Multiple Identities Through Highlife Music
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4304986 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Moses Nii-Dortey, Laryea Akwetteh (0000-0002-8718-082X) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 88-102 |
| Publication date | 2024-02-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Popular Music (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0261-1430 • E-ISSN: 1474-0095 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s026114302400028x |
| OpenAlex | W4406621088 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
Fifty-six years after its establishment, the Ghana National Symphony Orchestra in 2015 recorded its debut album Ghanaian Classics at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. Despite the overwhelming challenge of low patronage of art music in Africa generally, the choice of repertoire and composers for this historic album was largely drawn from the Ghanaian popular music domain. This paper investigates the extent to which the album recording and launch represented a deliberate attempt by the orchestra to negotiate its multiple identities through Ghanaian highlife music and musicians. We argue that the album recording, the choice of the highlife genre and artists featured on the CD, the instrumentation and the venues for the recording and launch were all a deliberate attempt to de-escalate the elitist label the Ghana National Symphony Orchestra has carried right from its inception and to court a larger following from the Ghanaian populace as a national cultural asset
Art · Art history · Literature · Negotiation · Social science · Sociology · Symphony · Visual arts · History · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Theater, Performance, and Music History
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |