Story in our  travelling  or  van Gogh as an adventure

Our family holiday this year was in the Netherlands, Egmond. To get up every morning with the wonderfull view over the see, sand and gras was our first aim in this holiday. The colours of the sky with its various clouds changes rapidly and reflects on the little village of Egmond. You can see the wind in the growing of the plants. Every time going out and visit another city, we enjoyed the sightseeing while just driving there so much. The city gives you excitment, after hours of walking around and seeing known areas, we came back to Egmond and it took all the tiredness of the day away.

In every holiday we do an adventure. As we  get older our adventure was this year the museum of Vincent van Gogh in Amsterdam. When we were in the queue my daughter spoke already a lot about the museum we are coming to enter. Because she studies graphic design, she already knew a lot about it. So we started to discuss about van Gogh and his life. It was sad and not funny. The only people, who didn`t put effort in was me and my nephew. Specially me, I don`t know anything about painting so I didn`t know what I should achieve from it, but I still want to go.

Often I made a lot of jokes with my nephew about why somobody comes and shows his paintings and a lot of people from allover the world line up to watch them.

We were in the queue for more than an hour. I can see excitement from my wife, she could not wait to enter this museum, including my last born, he was also so interested to enter and see. That gave me courage and I started to enjoy the queue. As we entered, the beginning of the painting didn`t give me any knowledge or feelings of interest. You watch and read and watch and read. But as we got more and more inside, floor by floor, suddendly my interest was kicked and I can see the painings so real and even see what was the reason of the paining. And if you read the text it was exactly the way I was thinking, when I watched it. I found myself discussing with my elder daughter about the paintings and she was surprised about my knowledge and interest. The art just touched me so much. The paintings have drawn me inside and told me stories.

The further we got the more the whole family talked about this art work. My nephew knew about painting from Highschool, but in Ghana they didn`t teach van Gogh.

I heared about it, but never saw the original ones. Now seeing the original paintings made you to feel real art. As a musician it immediatly draw me into my art and music.

This brings me to my motto into a bigger world: Art brings energy, energy brings happyness.

angel patience

Our new book, printed this year July by Paramon Verlag, Switzerland.

The story is all about patience. The characters are traditional drums from Ghana: the Ewe drum set with percussions: Adzimevu, Sogo, Boba, Esevu, Kidi, Kagan, Gakogvi and Aya.

This family is called Drum and lives in a village called patience. The love and patience they have for the people got them a lot of friends. They became famous, because of their names. Often they go to shopping and meet families and have a chat about daily life activities. As you know children like to get a lot of gifts, like toys, the main character Kagan got and demanded always a lot of toys. He always wants to get more, although he has a lot of them already. This behaviour made him to loose a lot of friends. Many families don’t want their children to visit Kagan anymore, because of his behaviour of demanding.

But one day things changed. He had a dream about an angel, who was called Patience. In his dream he was asking the angel:“ Why are you called Patience? Is it the patience like our village name?“ and the angel replied: „ yes excactly!“

 The angel was speaking to Kagan about the meaning of its name and described what you can gain from this name. You can get more than you ever wished, you can get friends and you can get happiness.

This leads me to my motto: „music brings energy, energy brings happiness!“

Buy one and enjoy this story, together with your children or grandchildren.

You can order the book directly through our website email (contact) or in various shops and online. 

This is where you can get or order the book:

Amazon

Thalia Holding GmbH

Weltbild

Hugendubel

Mayersche

Osiander

Libro

Morawa

Orell Füssli

And in the National Libry of Germany Frankfurt available.

This is the German version (Engelsgeduld) and the Englisch one is coming soon. We will keep you informed.

A wonderful cultural journey through time

A wonderful cultural journey through time 

100 years Anniversary:

organisation god helps Uganda in Zizers, Switzerland

September 2016

On this festival we supported Uganda. We are there as the African presenters. There were a lot of activities on this festival. Bookwriters were there to give speaches and other organisations had their stands on the festival place.

We had the African stand.

From 9 am. till 6 pm. we offered every 45 minutes a workshop and presented a concert. Aaron and me started the day with a show to announce the starting workshop.

After two workshops, we got people lining up to take part in the next round. This kept going on till the evening. The workshops and concerts had its own story to tell.

 In the afternoon we got half an hour brake and we used that opportunity to watch around on the festival.

Every stand you go had its own history to tell. You can see pictures and working tools of 100 years ago being used in Zizers / Chur. You can follow the production of the farmers of the area, such as seeing the cornmill, cider press or snaps distillery. We had possibility to try some of them by ourselves.

We visited also a stand where they dressed you up to look like the people 100 years ago. A lot of families dressed up like this with their children and took pictures in black and white with that old type of camera. And the studio looked also like 100 years ago, with its chairs, cupboards and room items. This was really fascinating. Suddenly as we were watching them, some of the workers there started smiling at us, talking to eachother. We got closer and they said, they want to show us a picture. We saw then old pictures of Africans who visited the Swiss friends 100 years ago in this village. Such a surprise! We were the only two Africans in that Moment on this stand. So we use that possibility to play a bit a theatre. Aaron should dress like those Africans 100 years ago in Zizers and I will come as a musician friend who visited him in that time. After they dressed Aaron up and me standing next to him in African dresses, with a talking drum under my armpit, waiting for taking picture, people started to gather and watch us. I think it really looked to them like a cultural journey through time.

After taking the picture, a lot of people asked to take pictures with us. We nearly missed our next round of giving workshop. Suddenly we saw the organiser walking towards us: „ people are waiting for you!“ Aaron undressed fast and we quickly went to our stand, 10 minutes late, but they were still waiting for us. The workshopo went on successfull and we had a good show.

 Finishing and to pack the drums was another surprise. We found out, the Swiss working there, were all relatives. Since generations they had contact and exchanges with African people. Everybody who helped us there, was telling us a story about where they have been in Africa. Some where also in Ghana before and many of them still live in African countries and just came for the festival.

The wonderful cultural journey through time brings the motto : music is energy – energy gives happyness. 

Celebrating Ghana and Africa

Celebrating Ghana and Africa: 6th August 2016, Geneva, Switzerland

There were a lot of programs going on, which was fascinating me so much on this day.

They trained the children, who live in Geneva the traditional dances from Ghana and let them perform. They really took the show very seriously and gave all their energie. Our group wings of a dove percussion power was supporting them with the music.

A wonderful fashionshow was also part of the program an they showed beautiful african dresses, designed by a Ghanaian, who lives in Geneva.

We also had to lead the chief and queenmother with music on stage. It really felt like we are performing in Ghana. The Ghanaian Ambassador arrived and we welcomed him with music.

There you could feel good energy in the place. Wings of a dove was cooling the whole place with a nice percussion and flute music. We played very old songs from Ghana and you can see the elders, who knew those songs were singing it together with the flute.

Smiling was in everybodys faces. The children felt so exiting and were walking around happy.

We catched the mood and put up a very nice performance. Additional the acrobatic show was very fascinating and surprising for everybody. The cheering and applause was going high.

This brings me to my motto : Music is energy - energy brings happyness. 

Lyca TV programm 2016 Zürich

 For launching Lyca TV in Zürich we took part on the intercultural programm. There were a lot of groups from different countries, such of India, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Switzerland, Burkina Faso and we presented Ghana. The act was very dynamic and all the groups on the stage gave their best. The Braziliens showed their beautyful costumes and performed a very nice dance. The Indians changed the atmosphere with their own costumes and their dance. After the Swiss breakdancers took over and blast the whole place with their dance and styles. The Capoeira group performed and cooled first the place down slowly and also then came up with their thrilling magical fighting dance and kicked the audience on their feet again. 

We took then over and came in with a powerful dance from Ghana called Takaj, in which we used our beautyfull smock costume. If you swing this dress through the dance it opens and the show becomes very impressive. We drawed the attention of the audience so that the whole place was quite watching the movement of the dress in the rhythm. The dancers could feel this atmosphere and gave more power to it. The more power they gave, the more the dresses opened and responded to the movement. It is a harmonical combination inbetween the drumrhythm and the dancemovement with the smock.

We then surprised them with our acrobatic display, which brought the audience back to the shouting out loud atmosphere and enjoying the show. 

The group from Burkina Faso also came in with their dynamic djembe playing and singing. They took the audience surprise from beginning and really take them into the music journey further into Africa. The audience followed the journey, felt the music and all of them were catched by the mood of dancing wild towards the rhythm.

The  whole place was from beginning till the end dynamic and cheering, which confirmed my motto again:   Music is energy - energy brings happyness. 

Being a star infront of your dentist

2016 - 60th birthday concert in Baden

We are there as a surprise for the wife of a dentist, who was working for Africa. As we arrived in Baden the daughter came and told us, please try to stay away from the audience, because my mother doesn't know you are here. We want to see her in the hall with a beaming in her face, because she loves African music.
 In the hall the buffet was upstairs and the concert will then take place in the downstairs. That is how the whole thing began.

as we are on the stage I can see somebody was beaming from far. We sang a happy birthday song with the audience and her family used that possibility to present the gift on the stage. As she came to the stage, you can see and feel her good mood to have us there. After receiving her gift, she thanked us for being there. We made her feel as if she would still be in Africa.

As I always present my birthday gift as a workshop, I did the same at this party. I wanted 10 family members to take part in the workshop as a gift for the lady. The request was open so nobody was willing to come. As you know, everytime people are panicking at the beginning, because none of them have taken part in African percussion and they are afraid to be embarrassed infront ot their family. 
So the son in law of the lady went round and picked people by himself. As they sat on the drums, there was one chair left and one drum. Now the lady made an announcement that there is man going to Ghana with his son on the next morning. So she would love that man to take part. I trained with them and then performed a short piece for the lady. The audience was thrilled.

After the show as they were introducing the musicians to the audience and they reached my turn and introduced me as a Ghanaian living in the littel village of Sins. One table was applausing and chearing so strong, everybody was watching the table and saying, yes he is from your village.

The husband of the lady came to the stage and said that all the audience are dentists and here with their wives. The dentist from your village is also here.
After the show I went to their table and greet them. I saw them and knew this is our family dentist who is known by my wifes family since long time, even before I came to the village.

This is were my motto comes in: Music brings energy, energy brings happyness.

The taste of being a star  -  Zanzibar


Zanzibar and the 60th birthday concert

In January 2016 we performed in Oberfrick at a 60th birthday celebration. The house we played in belongs to the shooting club of the region and this was also the title of the house. These circumstances took us alomst an hour to believe that this is where we are playing. 
As a Ghanaian having no connection to gunhouses, I was shocked driving there. The road was tiny and rough and it was the only road leading to this place. We had to follow the signboards. What helped us to believe that this is where we will perform was special wood torched which you can see from far. That gave me courage to drive closer. As I arrived there I didn't part next to the house, I left my car on the street. Then I walked closer to the house and I saw two women standing infront of the door. They saw I was suspicious and they are laughing. I got closer and one asked me:"Are you Mr. Donkor?" and I said: "Yes!" They told me to park well, because the event is in the house and the woman was the one who is celebrating her birthday and contacted me weeks before.
We got inside and prepared for our performance and started punctually.
I started with telling jokes of how we came to this house with suspicious feelings.
Then we wanted to present a gift to the lady celebrating. The gift was a game like a workshop. We got some women and men taking part, brought them to the stage and practiced. We then presented together a show, which was realy great and funny. This took fears from the other audience and in the end everybody wanted to try the drums. This kept the party so dynamic till the end.
Then we found out in the brake, there is a musician from Zanzibar in the audience and we asked him to jam with us. We took the audience by surprise, because they didn't know that he is a musician. The party took the direction to a fabulous mood.

This confirmed my motto again  -  music brings energy and energy brings happyness.