The Late Prof. Kwabena Nketia
Professor Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia, the renowned ethnomusicologist and composer, has passed on at the age of 97.
DAILY GUIDE gathered that Prof. Kwabena Nketia passed away at the Legon Hospital in Accra on Wednesday morning after a short illness.
The late professor was born June 22, 1921 at Mampong in the Ashanti Region.
Prof. Kwabena Nketia obtained his first musical education, and eventually trained as a teacher at the Presbyterian Training College, Akropong Akwapin where he later taught and was appointed acting principal in 1952.
He obtained a Ghanaian Government Scholarship at age 23 study phonetics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
In 1949, Prof. Kwabena Nketia continued to Birkeck College, University of London and Trinity College of Music, London, to obtain his Bachelor of Arts Degree.
He is known globally as a musicologist and composer.
Prof. Nketia is to African music what Bartok is to Western music. Of all the interpreters of African music and aesthetics, Nketia sets the pace.
By Melvin Tarlue