Bridging Art and Traditional Music at the University of Ghana: Intellectual Legacies of J.H. Kwabena Nketia and Akin Euba

The intellectual legacies of J.H. Kwabena Nketia (1921-2019) and Akin Euba (b. 1935) continue to shape how African art music is taught and composed at the University of Ghana’s (UG) Department of Music. This paper outlines the historical formation of their approaches to composition and research as a context for examining the 82 Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) theses completed in the department between 1992 and 2017. Our survey reveals that African art music, which centers on the reimagining of traditional music in new compositions, is a dominant research topic alongside ethnomusicological studies of traditional, popular and church music in Ghana. An analysis of three African art music compositions drawn from the M.Phil. theses demonstrates the challenges and possibilities of creatively engaging traditional music as well as the integral role UG has had in providing physical and intellectual contexts for these processes. The authors argue that in spite of a Eurocentric curriculum that focuses on Western art music theory, African art music, as shaped by Nketia and Euba, provides a framework for constructing notions of traditional music, bridging these notions with art music practices, and providing new contexts in which it is taught and performe