Harmonious Chorale to represent Ghana at Int’l Festival of Orthodox Church Music in Poland

Ghana’s favourite choir, Harmonious Chorale is set to leave for Poland to participate in the International Festival of Orthodox Church Music “Hajnowka” in Bialystok Poland.

Since its inception in 1982, the event has hosted over 850 choirs from six continents.  

The event which is scheduled to take place from 15 May 2019 to 20 May 2019 is organized under the patronage of the President of Poland as well as the Patronage of the Polish Minister of Culture and under the Artistic Patronage of Prof. K. Penderecki and the Patronage of the President of the City of Bialystok.  

The aim of the festival is to present the great artistic and spiritual values of Orthodox Church music. It also creates opportunities for discussions, meetings, exchanges of experiences and forming new relationships between participants from different backgrounds and.

With a 38 member team made up of 32 singers, four instrumentalists, one sound engineer in the person of  Dominic Ansa-Asare of Mido Productions and conductor by James Varrick Armaah,  Harmonious Chorale is the only choir from Africa participating in this year’s event.

According to the Founder and Executive Director of the choir James Varrick Armaah, “we are excited about the opportunity to showcase Ghana’s talents to the world”. 

He added that though Orthodox Church Music is largely not performed by the Harmonious Chorale, this event will serve as an opportunity to challenge the choir to move beyond its comfort zone, and also to uphold the confidence the organizers had in the choir for extending the invitation.

“This will also promote our brand of music as well as exerting Ghana’s influence in choral music at the world stage” he added.

After the festival week, Harmonious Chorale will stopover in Amsterdam before moving to hold some concerts in Germany.  On Saturday 25^th May, the choir will hold a concert at the Dusseldorf Ghana SDA Church from 16:00 – 19:00.

Also performing will be the Dusseldorf SDA Church Choir, Dusseldorf SDA Youth Choir and Oberhausen SDA Church Choir. This will be hosted by Pastor Isaac Kwabena Donkor (Church Pastor, Ghanaian SDA Churches in Aachen, Dusseldorf, Oberhausen and Frankfurt).

On Sunday, May 26, 2019, the choir will be hosted by Very Rev. Charles Kwesu Gyasi as they perform at the Dusseldorf Ghana Methodist Church from 11:00 to 14:30. Guest artiste is Akua Asantewaa.

In 2018 Harmonious Chorale represented Ghana at the World Choir Games in South Africa and was Champions of the World Choir Games (Category C28). It was also won three Gold Diplomas in three other categories. Harmonious Chorale is the resident choir of Salt and Light Music Ministry headed by Rev. Dr Joyce Rosalind Aryee.