Dr. Kwasi Ampene
Tufts University
Kwasi Ampene is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and the External Examiner of Theses at University of Cape Coast-Ghana. Ampene specializes in the rich musical traditions of the Akan people of West Africa. He has disseminated his research at national and international conferences and speaking engagements at major universities in Africa, United States, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, and South America. He has provided expert advice for public engagement projects on Akan culture and music to the British Library, Princeton University, and the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Ampene's book publications include, Asante Court Music and Verbal Arts in Ghana: The Porcupine and the Gold Stool (2020); Engaging Modernity: Asante in the Twenty-First Century (2016) and Female Song Tradition and the Akan of Ghana: The Creative Process in Nnwonkoro (2005). He is the leading editor of, Discourses in African Musicology: J.H. Kwabena Nketia Festschrifts (2015). Asante Court Music is the winner of J.H. Kwabena Nketia Book Prize by the African and African Diaspora Music Section in the Society for Ethnomusicology for the best monograph on African music in 2022. In addition to book publications, he has published several articles in prestigious journals. Ampene is the producer of the film documentary, Gone To The Village: Royal Funerary Rites for Asantehemaa Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II (2019). He is a member of the Editorial Board of the SOAS Studies in Music Series at the University of London. Ampene is the recipient of a 3G Media Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions to highlife music and the music industry in Ghana (2023). Ampene is the immediate past President of Ghana Studies Association (an international affiliate of the African Studies Association), the immediate past Chair of the Society for Ethnomusicology Council, and the past Chair of the African Music Section in the Society for Ethnomusicology.
