Man takes love of music to children in Ghana

Torrey Stadtner of Stockton teaches children in the Ghanaian village of kibi how to play the recorder.

Our Man in Ghana.

Torrey Stadtner, 53, a Stockton nurse and musician, recently took oboes and recorders to the Ghanaian village of Kibi to help start a music school.

There's a connection between Stockton and Kibi, a mostly unpaved mining village of 10,000 nestled in a forested mountain valley 55 miles northwest of the capital, Accra.

In 1969, a Stockton man exploring his roots in Ghana, John Guyton, befriended a young Kibi villager and persuaded him to attend college in Stockton.

Opoku Acheampong, then 19, attended San Joaquin Delta College and later University of the Pacific.

En route to earning an urban planning degree, Acheampong became fast friends with Dr. David and Tasha Stadtner, Torrey's parents.

Dr. Stadtner sponsored Acheampong, making it possible for him to overcome visa and money distractions and stay in college.

Dr. Stadtner also imbued Acheampong with his love of classical music and jazz.

"I got the bug from him," acknowledged Acheampong, now 58.

Graduating from Pacific in 1980, Acheampong worked as a planner in Southern California before retiring back to Ghana, where he wants to share his love of music.

He is working to open a music school in Kibi, as well as the David and Tasha Stadtner Memorial Library.

"The country is developing, but we don't have any school that is set aside to develop talent in music and art," Acheampong explained by phone this week.

"Our goal is just to make sure that the kids are exposed not only to African music but also the global music: classical music and jazz," he said.

Torrey Stadtner brought three oboes, 30 recorders, sheet music donated by the Cathedral of the Annunciation, organizational skills and good will.

"The people are extremely friendly," Stadtner reported. "And easy to joke with. They enjoy laughing."

Many live in tumbledown houses, raising goats, chickens and cows, and subsistence farming. Villagers are so good-natured that drivers don't curse at each other on chaotic roads, Stadtner said.

"When they do crash, they get out and fight. Then they get back into their cars and they go their separate ways," he observed.

The heat is oppressive, 90-something, but very humid. Ghana sits near the equator.

"They're famous for having a giant butterfly, one of the biggest in the world," Stadtner went on with his travelogue. "Many colorful birds, and giant fruit bats with a wingspan of about 2 feet. They look like flying foxes."

Stadtner enjoys the plantain, a banana relative and local staple. "They boil it, they fry it, they bake it over coals. They smash it and mix it with cassava root. They call it Fu-Fu."

But the local beers gave him a hangover - an allergic reaction, Stadtner insisted.

He also tried a sip of palm wine, which locals tap already fermented from toppled palm trees. They also distill it into gin. Stadtner hasn't gone there.

From Accra, Acheampong and Stadtner recruited famous Ghanaian music scholar Kwabena Nkatia, as well as bankers and instructors, for the school's board of directors.

Acheampong identified a colonial British community center as the site of the future school.

"Everybody's in favor," Stadtner said. "They're so excited."

Their plan is to open a branch in Accra, to create a classical music radio station and to establish ties to Pacific's Conservatory of Music - Tasha Stadtner sits on the conservatory's board - and spread across Ghana a love of classical music and jazz that traces back to Dr. Stadtner.

"I've never gone on a trip ... like this," said Torrey Stadtner, who returns to Stockton in a couple weeks. "This has been real exciting. This is an adventure."

Added Acheampong, "He's holding back, you know. I think on his last week we're going to try to force him to drink. I think the palm wine will do."

Contact columnist Michael Fitzgerald at

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