Prof. Fish, Mark-Millas

Mark-Millas Fish is an Associate Professor and the Head of the Department of Music Education, School of Creative Arts, University of Education, Winneba, specialising in Popular Music. Mark-Millas is a multi-instrumentalist, composer & arranger, founder-member, and lead vocalist for the Ghana Bigshots Band, with three music albums to his credit.

Having spent his early professional life as a bass player for prominent Ghanaian artistes and bands such as Cindy Thompson, Bob Pinodo, Bonze Konkoma, Local Dimension, and legendary Ebo Taylor, Mark-Millas developed a keen interest in highlife music scholarship. Hence, he earned a Ph.D. in Music (Creative Ethnomusicology) from the University of Education, Winneba, where he contributed to the scholarship of highlife and Ghanaian popular music by exploring indigenous Ghanaian children's rhymes and games as a resource for creating neoclassic big-band highlife music.

As a researcher, Mark-Millas has shaped studies on highlife music with a seminal work, Redefining Ghanaian Highlife Music in Modern Times, which stimulates debates on highlife music as a material essence rather than a social construct. Similarly, his groundbreaking research, Health Sustainability of Popular Musicians in Ghana, promotes a discourse on sustainable health and the careers of popular musicians. 

As a performer, Mark-Millas has toured and performed his musical works in the USA, Europe, and other parts of Africa. He was remarkably adjudged Africa’s Best Young Musician for the American Roots Music Program for Jazz Musicians in 2010 by the U.S. State Department and the DeVos Institute for Arts Management of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 2014, Mark-Millas performed with the Ghana Bigshots Band at the African Studies Conference in Bayreuth, Germany, and the Afrikafestival in Hertme, Netherlands. Mark-Millas also won the Audience Choice Award for the Yamaha E-Band Competition with the band, BSB, in 2018, organised by the Yamaha Music Gulf FZE in Japan.

Mark-Millas is a reviewer for the Occupational Standards (National Proficiency to Higher National Diploma Level) and a contributor to developing the Teaching & Learning Materials for Music Competence-Based Training (CBT) Programme for the Commission for Technical and Vocational Education Training (CTVET). He is a reviewer for the Journal of African Arts and Culture (JAAC).

Mark-Millas' research interests span a broad array of issues in the area of popular music and performance. He is one of the few personalities in Ghana with academic proficiency and professional expertise in popular music. His contributions to popular music scholarship in Ghana cannot be overemphasised, as evidenced by his extensive publications and presentations of his research works on highlife music and Ghanaian popular musicians at local and international conferences. 

https://www.youtube.com/@bigshotsgh2458