Professor Akin Euba has died. The musicology and composition giant would have been 85 on April 28, his birth date in 1935. According to imusici,org, he passed on April 14.
Fred Onovwerosuoke, an American composer, says Professor Euba was an expansive thinker in the world of musicology, – not just African.
“He was a theorist of immense world scope but with unparalleled devotion to Africa’s unique voice. Without a doubt he not only coined the term, ‘African Pianism,’ he led the debate to define what it entails. He will be missed!” Onovwerosuoke stated.
Wikipedia records that born in Lagos, Nigeria, Euba studied composition with Arnold Cooke at the Trinity College of Music, London, obtaining the diplomas of fellow of the Trinity College London (Composition) and fellow of the Trinity College London (Piano). He was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 1962. He received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied with Mantle Hood, Charles Seeger, Professor J. H. Kwabena Nketia, Klaus Wachsmann, and Roy Travis. He holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Ghana, Legon (1974). While at Legon, Euba’s doctoral work was supervised by Professor Nketia, and his dissertation is entitled “Dundun Music of the Yoruba”.
He was professor and director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Lagos, and has also served as a senior research fellow at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Nigeria. He served as head of music at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation for five years. He was a research scholar and artist in residence at IWALEWA House, the African studies center of the University of Bayreuth in Germany between 1986 and 1992. He was the Andrew Mellon Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh between 1993 and 2011 and he is the current Andrew W. Mellon Professor, Emeritus in music. He is the founder and director of the Centre for Intercultural Music Arts, London (founded in 1989), and director emeritus of the Centre for Intercultural Musicology at Churchill College, University of Cambridge.
Euba’s scholarly interests include the musicology and ethnomusicology of modern interculturalism. He has organized regular symposia on music in Africa and the Diaspora at Churchill College, Cambridge as well as the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. These events have featured such notable composers and scholars as J. H. Kwabena Nketia and Halim El-Dabh. With his Elekoto Ensemble, he has brought together musicians from Nigeria, China, India, Germany, Malta, and the United States.
His compositions involve a synthesis of African traditional material (often from his own ethnic group, the Yoruba people) and contemporary classical music. His most ambitious composition is the opera Chaka: An Opera in Two Chants (1970), which blends West African percussion and atenteben flutes with twelve tone technique.
Works
Six Yoruba Folk Songs, arranged for voice and piano
1956 – Introduction and Allegro, orchestra
1963 – Five Pieces for English Horn and Piano for Derek Bell
1964 – Four Pictures from Oyo Calabashes
1964 – Impressions From an Akwete Cloth, piano
1967 – Morning, Noon, and Night, singers, dancers, and Nigerian instruments
1967 – Olurounbi (or Olurombi), Symphonic study for Orchestra
1970 (rev. 1999) – Chaka, Opera
1970 – Ice Cubes, string orchestra
1970 – Scenes From Traditional Life, piano
1975 – Alatangana, ballet for singers, dancers, and Nigerian instruments
1979 – Black Bethlehem, soloists, chorus, Nigerian drums, and jazz ensemble
1987 – Wakar Duru: Studies in African Pianism 1-3, piano
2003 – Below Rusumo Falls, voice, dancer, kayagum, flute, drums, and piano (text: Olusola Oyeleye)
Discography
1989 – Piano Music of Akin Euba, performed by Peter Schmalfuss (includes Scenes from Traditional Life and Wakar Duru: Studies in African Pianism)
1999 – Chaka: An Opera in Two Chants, from an epic poem by Léopold Sédar Senghor. Point Richmond, California, United States: Music Research Institute MRI-001CD.
2005 – Towards an African Pianism: An Anthology of Keyboard Music From Africa and the Diaspora. Vol. 1. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States: A Bridge Across: Intercultural Composition, Performance, Musicology, Department of Music, University of Pittsburgh, ABA 001 CD.
2005 – Towards an African Pianism: An Anthology of Keyboard Music From Africa and the Diaspora. Vol. 2. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States: A Bridge Across: Intercultural Composition, Performance, Musicology, Department of Music, University of Pittsburgh, ABA 002 CD.
Writings
Euba, Akin (1970). “Music Adapts to a Changed World: A Leading Composer Looks at How Africa’s Musical Traditions Have Expanded to Suit Contemporary Society.” Africa Report, November 1970, pp. 24–27.
Euba, Akin (1989). “Yoruba Music in the Church: The Development of a Neo-African Art Among the Yoruba of Nigeria.” In African Musicology: Current Trends: A Festschrift Presented to J. H. Kwabena Nketia, ed. J. C. DjeDje and W. G. Carter (Atlanta, Georgia), pp. 45–63.