“Ista hawo” a twenty-first century composition for the celebration of Easter

Abstract

Music composition has been identified as one of the oldest and unique musical behaviours. Musicians have been motivated by creative thinking skills and creative explorations, leading to the generation of daily innovations in the field of musical arts. In recent years those creative arts continue to develop unabated with new ideas in every musical art form. In Ghana, one of the creative musical art form is art music. Though art music has expounded in Ghana, it is difficult to identify any concrete work or composition that is suited for Easter songs with the traditional compositional elements. The methodology of this study is basically an exploratory research where Creative thinking, Cultural Trauma Model and Cultural Challenge Model were adopted. Various musical elements and techniques were explored to investigate the possibility of the adopted models. Churches and choral groups were visited to observe the musical materials and musical styles that they participate in or work with. Sample was collected on various art music composition to identify the trends in art music compositions. It was found out that creative composition for Easter by exploring the Ghanaian traditional musical elements is possible. It was also found out that the adaptation of Creative Theories such as Cultural trauma model and Cultural challenge model are feasible and that future composer are encouraged to employ them. The researcher recommends that Indigenous musical tradition should be synthesized and adapted for the Christian worship instead of making them go extinct.