Famous music composer Prof. Nketia dies at 97

PROFESSOR JOSEPH Hanson Kwabena Nketia, the renowned ethnomusicologist and composer has been reported dead at aged 97.

DGN Online understands that Prof. Kwabena Nketia died 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 of Ghana.

Prof. Kwabena Nketia obtained his first musical education, and eventually trained as a teacher at the Presbyterian Training College, AkropongAkwapin where he later taught and was appointed Acting Principal in 1952.

He obtained a Ghanaian Government Scholarship at age 23 to go 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 widely known globally as musicologist and composer. He is to African music what Bartok is to Western music. Of all the interpreters of African music and aesthetics, Nketia sets the pace.