The Pan African Orchestra was founded in 1988 by the late Nana Danso Abiam to develop a new style of orchestral music that explores the classical foundations of African music, utilizing African traditional and neo-traditional sound sources and concepts as a framework point of reference.
The Instrumentation of the Orchestra consists of: 16 atenteben flutes, 3 kora flutes, 4 gyile xylophones, 4 kora harp-lutes, 4 gonje fiddles, 7 elephant tusk horns, 2 mbira hand-pianos, 2 algaita oboes, fontomfrom drum ensemble, atsimevu drum ensemble, 5 kpanlogo drums, 5 djembe drums, gome bass drum, 7 dondon hour-glass drums.
To these are added other special instruments according to requirements.
The idea for the Pan-African Orchestra was conceived by Nana Danso Abiam while he was a student (under the veritable Music Genius Professor Kwabena Nketia) at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, when the country was inspired by a nationalistic movement that prevailed during the rule of Ghana’s first post-independence president Kwame Nkrumah.
The late Nana Abiam was influential in setting up three Orchestras: The Pan African Orchestra (PAO), the Accra Symphony Orchestra (ASO) and the Pan African Youth Orchestra (PAYO).
In 1985, whilst Danso Abiam was in London researching in music and education, a call came from the government’s cultural supreme, Doctor Mohamed Ben-Abdallah, who having discovered Nana’s proposals, invited him to return to Accra to become director of the Ghanaian National Symphony Orchestra, with an open brief to transform it as he had proposed.
This involved, essentially, the orchestra throwing away its violins and cellos and adopting African instruments which, Danso Abiam has written, was “considered a definite retrograde step” by the orchestra.
Realising the impossibility of achieving his aim “within the stifling confines” of the orchestra’s “colonial mentality,” Danso Abiam resigned and proceeded to create his own brand new orchestra in 1988.
(The Pan-African Orchestra)
His initial blueprint, for 108 musicians, was soon whittled down to 28 by economic necessity. The first monies for salaries, subsistence and accommodation for the musicians came piecemeal in donations from friends; it was some time before a modest grant from the Ghanaian National Commission for Culture underwrote half of the group’s basic monthly expenditure.
Danso Abiam began recruiting from traditional village musicians he had met during years of research and planning, and from the pool of players working for the twenty-odd folkloric groups of Accra.
Danso Abiam’s large first floor apartment in the bustling Kokomemle district of Accra served as headquarters for the Orchestra, competing against the sound systems of the neighbouring Tip Toe Garden and the White Spot Night and Day Club. Rehearsals sometimes took place there with the musicians lining the corridor in two lines, while the bigger drums were banished to the balcony for lack of space.
Danso Abiam was usually to be found wandering between the rehearsals, which he conducted strictly, and his office, where he checked batches of kente cloth for the smart uniforms, and fielded numerous calls on anything from transport to ordering new instruments.
Important rehearsals, prior to a tour or a performance, are held at the W.S.B.Du Bois Centre for Pan African Culture on the outskirts of Accra.
The PAO focused on so-called “re-compositions”, using traditional themes as the basis for their orchestral interpretations.
The PAO performed at the 1994 WOMAD Festival, and went on to record their album Opus I.
It was released through Real World Records in 1995, and subsequently topped the international New World Music Charts for six weeks.
A youth wing of the PAO, the Pan African Youth Orchestra (PAYO), was formed in 1995 in collaboration with the National Theatre of Ghana.
In 2001, in collaboration with dance company Adzido, the PAO toured the UK with the musical play Yaa Asantewaa – Warrior Queen (written by Margaret Busby and directed by Geraldine Connor), and in 2003 the PAO collaborated with kora player Tunde Jegede.
His mission with the PAO, originally a 30-piece ensemble, had been to explore the classical foundations of traditional African music and to cultivate an integrated continental art form through new compositional and orchestral techniques.
The musicians play traditional instruments from across Africa, including the atenteben, gonje, kora and gyile.
Sadly, Nana Danso Abiam died in a motor accident in Accra on 24th December 2014 just after his 61st birthday.
May his Soul Rest in Peace 💐🌺
I played with Nana in 1982 in Germany and 1984 in London. We were only four musicians, but he told us several times about his vision of the Pan African Orchestra. When I met them, there was Nana with his flutes, a piano player and a musician playing bells and shakers. They used to have a musician playing African drums, but he could not take part in the tour. I told them I was also a percussionist, but I had only my tabla drums from India with me. When Nana heard the tabla, he said: “Wow, this fits perfectly into my music!” So they kept me for that tour and a radio session. Later he invited me to London to record in BBC. After that I did not hear from him until 1999. I was in Barcelona in a record store, where I found a CD entitled “Pan African Orchestra”. I recognized it was Nana’s work and I felt so happy when I heard it.
Great