Move to Digitise Highlife Music

THE GRAMOPHONE Records Museum Research Centre of Ghana (GRMRCG) has embarked on a ?250 million project aimed at digitising the country's colonial highlife music on the internet.

The ?250 million-grant loan received from the Daniel Langlois Foundation for the Arts and Science Technology, a Montreal (Canada) based NGO for the project.

The National library of Canada has as a result, seconded its chief Audio conservator Mr. Gilles St. Laurent to Ghana to assemble the equipment and also offer a two week training to the staff of the museum and two other students, one a final year student and a master's programme student from the UCC.

The programme involves the digitisation of the entire 78-rpm shell 45-rpm and 33 1/3-rpm discs at the museum and the GBC music archives, which represents over 700 Ghanaian artists or groups the duration of which will be 18 months.

Briefing newsmen who were invited to inspect the equipment, a Ghanaian curator, Mr. Kwame Sarpong explained that the first phase of the project involving the assembling plant and design content including audio, test as well as database search interface had already been completed.

Mr. Sarpong hinted that it is the determination of management to donate the collection of all records to the people of Ghana in the near future to serve as the nucleus of a National Sounds Archives.

A number of students from both secondary and tertiary institutions in the Cape Coast municipality have been attracted to the CNC to see how the machines are operated.