In this program Samuel Boateng returns to City of Asylum with the ADEPA ensemble to share his journey as a transnational African artist using music, visual art, film, and scholarship as his medium. ADEPA, is a multidisciplinary group of musicians who perform highlife, afrobeat, jazz, and modern African music, drawing from adowa, azonto, agbadza, funk, kete, and gospel. Their work opens conversations about the continuous and mutual influence between African and African diasporic cultures in order to unsettle the boundaries between “tradition” and “modern.” Samuel’s work reminds the world that we have the power to imagine and create new social realities beyond what is dictated by difference, capitalism, and the pervasive impact of colonialism. It is our joy and honor to embrace this work and its message with Samuel and ADEPA on the 66th anniversary of Ghana’s independence from the United Kingdom. 

About the Artist:

Samuel Boateng is a multidisciplinary artist from Ghana. He is also a PhD candidate in music (Jazz Studies program) at University of Pittsburgh where he teaches, performs, and conducts research about cultural encounters in the Afro Diasporic experience, with a particular focus on Ghanaians’ relationship to jazz. He also holds a Masters in Ethnomusicology from Kent State University. As a musician, Samuel has collaborated with various bands and collectives across diverse genres including jazz, funk, reggae, hip hop, highlife, Afrobeat, dangdut, traditional African music and dance. He has also worked with a wide range of Pittsburgh-based musicians including Afro Yaqui Music Collective, Hugo Cruz and Caminos, Feralcat and the Wild, Truth And Rites, Mathew Tembo and the Afro routes, and Dangdut Cowboys. Samuel has performed at the John F. Kennedy Center, Kelly Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh, and Lincoln Center among others. As a composer and ASCAP award winner, his works have been performed by the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Kent State Orchestra, Ion Sound, among many other notable ensembles.

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant 40 North will be closed, but a cash wine bar will be available.