GRi Arts & Culture 12 - 06 - 2002

Pan African Orchestra to tour the UK

Accra (Greater Accra) 12 June 2002 - The Pan- African Orchestra is scheduled to go on its 2002 UK summer tour from 19 June to 10 July.

A statement issued in Accra on Tuesday said the tour, which is taking place with financial assistance from the Arts Council of England, is organised by the African and Caribbean Music Circuit and the Asian Music Circuit both based in the UK.

It would merge the Orchestra and the all-female classical Indian group, "StreeShakti", led by Anuradha Pal, into a south-south synthesis dubbed "Africa in Conversation with India."

Two commissioned works jointly composed by Nana Danso Abiam and Anuradha Pal would be premiered at the Turner Simms Hall in Southampton with subsequent performance as Usher Hall in Edinburgh, Contact Theatre in Manchester and Barbican Centre in London.

The statement said by the end of the tour, the orchestra would have performed a record-breaking 68 shows in the UK alone since last summer. Its last tour ended in Ireland last March with Yaa Asantewaa Warrior Queen, the musical epic with dance.

The two groups would spend 10 days rehearsing, fine-tuning and putting pieces together in London before the actual tour takes off on 30 June this year.

Nana Abiam founded the Pan Afrian Orchestra in 1988 with the objective of exploring the classical foundation of African music. The orchestra has steadily established itself if the international music arena over the past years as the leading exponent of neoclassical African music.

GRi…/

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