Agbekor, for Saxophone Quartet, Cowbell, and Conga, is a work that has been inspired by a complex polymetric type of singing and drumming (called Agbekor) that was created by the Ewe-speaking people who live on the Atlantic coast of Western African in the nation-states of Ghana and Togo. The word agbekor signifies enjoying life: "we make ourselves happy in life".
    The traditional Agbekor percussion ensemble consists of a bell, a gourd rattle, and four drums. Each part played by the ensemble in itself is not too difficult. The challenge is to hear them within a polyphonic texture that seems to change depending on one's point of musical reference. In my work, as in the traditional ensemble, the rhythm of the bell is the thread that ties all the other instruments together, and does it through its 3x4 polymetric structure.