Elijah Amekudzi, Manager of Ghanaba African Heritage Centre in pose with his team
Team Ghanaba has expressed appreciation to all those who attended the screening of the Hallelujah Chorus at the Ghanaba African Heritage Centre.
It was a day full of inspiration, networking and information sharing at the centre.
The Hallelujah Film was recorded 18 years ago and it was Ghanaba’s final project. The film is 60-minute long, documenting the collaboration between the late Kofi Ghanaba and the Winneba Youth Choir to create an African interpretation of G.F. Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.
The film consists of the performance and interview with Ghanaba, who also discussed his long career in music. The film makers are Professor Steven Feld, who is a friend of Ghanaba and Nii Yemo Nunu who was Ghanaba’s personal photographer and friend, and Nii Noi Nortey, a musician and friend of Ghanaba.
In 1986, Ghanaba performed his interpretation of the Hallelujah Chorus at The Royal Albert Hall in London, where he was accompanied by an all-West Indian Choir. During the performance, Ghanaba drummed and chanted passages from the original Handel Score. Both concerts were sell-outs, and received standing ovations.
Ghanaba’s interpretation of the Hallelujah Chorus and the power and control he displayed over the African drums during the performance earned him the Ghanaian cultural appellation “Odomankoma Kyrema”, meaning Divine Drummer, which was conferred on him in a time-honoured traditional ceremony in London in 1986.
Ghanaba beleived he was directed by God to produce an African Drums interpretation of the immortal Hallelujah Chorus, and he wanted to go down in history as the African Jazz man who created the African version of the European Classical Hallelujah Chorus.