Amo (2021)

Composer note

The 18th century philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo (c.1703 – c.1759) was brought to Germany as a small child from Axim in present-day Ghana. The noble family Amo served allowed him to be educated, and he completed his law school training at the University of Halle in 1729. After further studies in philosophy, Amo taught at the universities of Wittenberg, Halle and Jena, before returning to Africa around 1750.

The libretto is adapted with permission from translations in Stephen Menn and Justin E. H. Smith, Anton Wilhelm Amo’s Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020). The primary text is Antonius Guilielmus Amo, 1734, “Disputatio philosophica continens ideam distinctam eorum quae competunt vel menti vel corpori nostro vivo et organico” (Philosophical Disputation Containing a Distinct Idea of Those Things That Pertain Either to the Mind or to Our Living and Organic Body).

The sung texts are in Latin, English, German, Dutch, and Twi, Amo’s native language. Primary translations and examples of written and spoken Twi were provided by Dr. Obenewaa Oduro-Opunim, a native Twi speaker and Assistant Professor in the Department of German Studies, University of Arizona, with additional translations and examples by Kobina Hagan, Ghanaian theatre and film director, actor, writer, new media artist, and researcher on Akan languages, folklore and mythologies. We are grateful for their contributions. 

Special thanks to Professors Menn (Department of Philosophy, McGill University) and Smith (History and Philosophy, University of Paris 7); Norman Hirschy and Peter Ohlin (senior editors, Music and Philosophy, Oxford University Press); Prof Kira Thurman (Department of Germanic Languages, University of Michigan); Prof Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh (Faculty of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana); and Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (SAVVY Contemporary Berlin). Finally, my very deep gratitude to the Neue Vocalsolisten for their gracious, insightful, and tenacious work on my composition.

This work was completed at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study) in June 2021. It is dedicated to the place where I first conceived it, the Anton Wilhelm Amo Center at SAVVY Contemporary Berlin.

— George Lewis