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    The Organ Works of Fela Sowande: Cultural Perspectives
    The Organ Works of Fela Sowande: Cultural Perspectives
    The Organ Works of Fela Sowande: Cultural Perspectives
    Ebook157 pages1 hour

    The Organ Works of Fela Sowande: Cultural Perspectives

    By Godwin Sadoh

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    Nigeria has been blessed with a few well-trained organist-composers since the arrival of Christianity in the most populous African country around the 1840s. The institutions established by European missionaries and the colonial administration had a great impact on the emergence of the 'Nigerian organ school'. The musicians had their formative periods at the mission schools, church choirs, and under organ playing apprenticeships. This book focuses on selected organ works by the most celebrated African art musician, Fela Sowande, a Nigerian organist-composer. Fela Sowande is the first African to popularize organ works by natives of Africa in Europe and the United States. He was one of the pioneer composers to incorporate indigenous African elements such as folksongs, rhythms and other types of traditional source materials in solo works for organ. He is considered the most prolific Nigerian composer for solo organ in Nigeria. The discussion of Sowande's music enunciates the relationship between traditional and contemporary musical processes in postcolonial Nigeria. A cultural and/or ethnomusicological analysis of Sowande's selected pieces for organ solo involves an examination of specific indigenous source materials such as rhythmic organization, melodic constructs/thematic materials (music communication), interrelations of music and dance, and elements of musical conception.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateOct 4, 2007
    ISBN9780595915958
    The Organ Works of Fela Sowande: Cultural Perspectives
    Author

    Godwin Sadoh

    Godwin Sadoh is a Nigerian ethnomusicologist, intercultural musicologist, composer, church musician, organist, pianist, choral conductor, and prolific publishing scholar with over 90 publications. His compositions have been performed and recorded worldwide. He is the first African to receive a doctoral degree in organ performance from any institution in the world. Sadoh has taught at numerous institutions including the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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      Book preview

      The Organ Works of Fela Sowande - Godwin Sadoh

      Copyright © 2007, 2014 Godwin Sadoh.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse LLC

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-0-5954-7317-5 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-0-5959-1595-8 (e)

      iUniverse rev. date: 03/22/2014

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Preface

      CHAPTER 1   Historical Background of Art Music in Nigeria

      CHAPTER 2   The Biography of Fela Sowande

      CHAPTER 3   Classification of Fela Sowande’s Organ Works

      CHAPTER 4   A Cultural Analysis of Fela Sowande’s Organ Work

      CHAPTER 5   Intercultural Perspectives

      CHAPTER 6   Conclusion

      APPENDIX A   Principal Archives

      APPENDIX B   Discography

      APPENDIX C   Fela Sowande and Adelaide Hall in London Concerts

      Bibliography

      Fela Sowande’s Organ Compositions

      Acknowledgments

      My sincere thanks go to all those who have made the writing and publication of this research work possible. I am very grateful for the support and assistance I received from Dinos Constantinides, Steven Beck, David Smyth, Michaelene Walsh, and Constance Carroll. My heartiest gratitude is extended to those persons and organizations that provided me with the composer’s scores, published and unpublished manuscripts from their rare collections: Roy Belfield Jr., Mike Wright, Mickey Thomas Terry, Suzanne Flandreau (Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College, Chicago), Sarah Hartwell (Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire), and Lois Kuyper-Rushing (Director, Music Library, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge), for helping me to proofread the entire manuscript. I specially thank Iain Cameron Williams who sent me several newspaper clips, concert programs and flyers, and photos of Fela Sowande and Adelaide Hall for inclusion in this historic book. I specially thank my very good friend, Jimi Olumuyiwa, for providing me with the photo—graphs of the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, and Thomas Ekundayo Phil—lips. Words cannot express my gratitude to Guy Pernetti and Halim El-Dabh (current music executors of Fela Sowande’s estate) for providing me with several special photos of Fela Sowande and for granting me the permission to use them and all published scores of the composer in this book.

      Preface

      Nigeria has been blessed with a few well-trained organist-composers since the arrival of Christianity in the most populous African country around the 1840s. The institutions established by European missionaries and the colonial administration had a great impact on the emergence of the ‘Nigerian organ school.’ The incentive to become professional organist-composers was further propelled and inspired through the private lessons given to talented Nigerian church musicians at an early age. The musicians had their formative periods at the mission schools, church choirs, and under organ playing apprenticeships.¹ This book focuses on selected organ works by the most celebrated African art musician, Fela Sowande, a Nigerian organist-composer. He composed seventeen major works for organ while he was in Great Britain and the United States.

      Fela Sowande and his organ music deserve scholarly study for several reasons. Although he belongs to the second generation of Nigerian organist-composers, it was Sowande who laid the foundation for the ‘Nigerian organ school’ through his numerous compositions for the instrument. Sowande is the first African to popularize organ works by natives of Africa in Europe and the United States. He was one of the pioneer composers to incorporate indigenous African elements such as folksongs, rhythms and other types of traditional source materials in solo works for organ.² He is considered the most prolific Nigerian composer for solo organ in his country.

      Eileen Southern, eminent and distinguished scholar of African-American music and its history acknowledged that Sowande’s works have been performed and recorded widely in the United States, Africa and Europe.³ Abiola Irele points out that art music composed by Africans rarely receives recognition at the inter—national level.⁴ It is for this reason that efforts are being made by African scholars, composers, and performers to research, document, analyze and promote modern African art music such as Fela Sowande’s organ works.

      This study contributes to the understanding of organ literature in Nigeria as exemplified in the life and music of Fela Sowande. It elucidates some of the questions about how Africans became interested in writing Western classical music. Afolabi Alaja-Browne states that Sowande, like many great minds of the contemporary musical scene, turned his attention to issues involved in the syncretic (African and European) approach at a time when some of his colleagues thought it would be futile.⁵

      The discussion of Sowande’s music enunciates the relationship between traditional and contemporary musical processes in postcolonial Nigeria through the examination of rhythmic, melodic, and extra-musical properties. Kwabena Nketia, one of the leading African musicologists, argues that procedures in contemporary music should employ the process of developing modern idioms out of traditional music or the usages of previous generations of composers and creative performers.⁶ Kofi Agawu also corroborates this assertion when he states that in most cultures of the world, the creative act of composition may be defined simply as the transformation of pre-existing material into new, individualized structures.⁷ By analyzing Sowande’s organ works, they may become source materials for creative use by composers both in Nigeria and the world at large. The investigation thus affords African and non-Africans alike the opportunity to understand the creative procedures of contemporary Nigerian art music. Indeed, this study contributes toward ethnomusicological research on modern intercultural music, and the synthesis of African, African-American, and European idioms.

      The preface of this book sets both the purpose and the parameters for the writing. In retrospect, the purpose is to examine organ works based on indigenous Nigerian and African-American source materials by Fela Sowande in the context of cultural, religious, and socio/political influences on music making in postcolonial Nigeria. All references to organ building, registration practices, secular com—positions or choral works for voices and organ accompaniment were excluded.

      The historical background as it relates to the development of art music in Nigeria is the focus of chapter one. It illustrates how Nigerian musicians first came in contact with Western classical music such as organ works through the churches, schools, modern elite, and socio/economic factors instituted by the Christian missionaries and colonial administration.

      Chapter two presents a short biography of Fela Sowande as the pioneer of solo organ works in Nigeria. The impact of his bi-cultural background in education, religious beliefs and philosophies of life, as well as events that surrounded his formative years, is addressed as a major influence on the type of music he composed. In this regard, Sowande may be perceived as a conduit of Nigerian cultural heritage.

      The major portion of this book is devoted to the discussion of Sowande’s music. In chapter three, his organ works are classified according to their

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