GTA to attract tourists with choral festival

The Central Regional Manager of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Mr Alex Boakye, has reiterated the authority’s resolve to help develop Ghanaian choral and folkloric music into a viable tourism product.

“This is why we have launched the Africa Sing Aloud festival to support choral music. We intend to promote the festival at all international tourism fairs in order to sustain it, to increase tourist visits to Ghana and also increase revenue,” he said.

Mr Boakye was speaking at the Centre for National Culture, Cape Coast, where the Central Region held the first in a series of regional choral contests organised by the GTA as a prelude to the ‘Africa Sing Aloud’ international choral music festival.

The international event is slated for the National Theatre in Accra and the Cape Coast Castle from March, 29, to 30, 2014. It will be preceded by 11 regional contests and one national competition.

The festival has the theme; “Celebrating cultures through choral music” and will be open to choirs all over the world.

The Passionate Choir won the Central Regional Competition ahead of the reigning champions, the Africa Youth Choir, the Mass Demonstrational Choir and the Oguaa Youth Choir.

The group will represent the region at the national competition billed to take place at the Prempeh Assembly Hall, Kumasi on November 17.

The top three performers received GH¢1, 000, GH¢500 and GH¢250 respectively. The Oguaa Youth Choir, which came fourth, took home GH¢100 as consolation prize.

Participation in the regional competitions is open to amateur choirs from the 10 regions of Ghana as well as Tema, which has been categorised as a region for the sake of the contest.

The regional contests are expected to end in October this year, after which the national event will be held to select the best three groups to represent Ghana at the international event.

Source: The Mirror