CU West African Highlife Ensemble Celebrating 10th Anniversary with Performance Featuring Asante Chiefs & Queenmothers

Boulder, CO, February 02, 2010 --(PR.com)-- The University of Colorado at Boulder College of Music is proud to announce the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the CU West African Highlife Ensemble. CUWAHE will commemorate this milestone by combining traditional and contemporary in one concert which will bring African music to audiences of all ages and walks of life. Joining in the anniversary celebration will be a delegation of chiefs and queenmothers from the Asante Kingdom of Ghana who will share their vibrant musical traditions. Ensemble director Kwasi Ampene has invited these chiefs to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the restoration of the Asante Kingdom from British Colonial rule.

The concert is Saturday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Macky Auditorium on the CU campus and tickets are $10 to $35. Call the CU Presents Box Office at (303) 492-8008 for information about this performance or visit www.cupresents.org.

Performing high energy, tightly knit traditional, neo-traditional, and highlife dance music from Ghana, CU's Highlife Ensemble has audiences dancing in the aisles to its irresistible West African rhythms. Under the direction of ethnomusicology professor Kwasi Ampene, the group includes thirty music and non-music majors from the Boulder campus. It is the first university ensemble in the US to perform highlife music. Unlike all other presentations of African music and culture, CUWAHE presents contemporary Afropop and highlights the aspects of traditional African music that still can be found in the highly energetic sounds of traditional drumming and dance. CUWAHE is the only ensemble in the US to perform contemporary African pop music.

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