Lazarus Ekwueme

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Lazarus Ekwueme
Born
Lazarus Edward Nnanyelu Ekwueme

(1936-01-28) 28 January 1936 (age 88)
Occupations
  • Academic
  • actor
  • composer
RelativesAlex Ekwueme (brother)
Academic background
Alma materYale University
ThesisIbo Choral Music: Its Theory and Practice (1972)
Academic work
DisciplineMusic
Sub-disciplineAfrican musicology

Lazarus Edward Nnanyelu Ekwueme

Africans and Africans in diaspora. He is the traditional ruler of Oko Kingdom.[2]

Biography

Lazarus Ekwueme was born in Oko,

]. In 1962, he obtained the professional teaching diploma, Licentiate of the Guildhall School of Music.

While studying in Britain, he embraced the theatre and he was an actor in some African films produced by the African Service of the

British Broadcasting Corporation. He left Britain in 1964, and returned to Nigeria, where he took up a faculty position at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. As a lecturer of music composition, theory, history, singing and conducting, he was an important member in the pioneering Nigerian music department at Nsukka, which was the first to award music degrees in the country. He also gave considerable attention to choral music, organising the University of Nigeria Choral Society, a group of foreign and local students who performed regularly in Nsukka.[4]

In 1966, he went abroad to obtain a post graduate degree in

As a music scholar, he explored distinctive indigenous African rhythm and melody in some songs of the New world and American music, a theme that was one of the vocal points of his research efforts. As a researcher, he spent time studying musical patterns of Africans, Caribbean and African Americans. He noticed the similarities in ways in which African Americans in Louisiana and Africans in Dahomey sing songs. Also, the importance and employment of music in cardinal events in the lives of Africans and those in diaspora is a theme prevalent in many of his research efforts.[7]

Personal life

Ekwueme is a younger brother to the late former Nigerian Vice President Alex Ekwueme.[1]

Works

Books and articles

  • Teasers: Poems, proverbs, and puns, 1993
  • Choir training and choral conducting for Africans. 1993
  • Essays on the Theory of African Music, 2004

Choral compositions

  • "Missa Africana"
  • "A Night in Bethlehem" (1963)
  • "Piano Concerts in Re" (1962)
  • "Rhapsody Nigeriana"
  • "Hombe" (Kenyan Folk Song) (1968)
  • "Beware" (Negro Spiritual)
  • "Zidata Mo Nso nke Gi"
  • "Nwa n’akwa akwa" (1972)
  • "Elimeli" (1979)
  • "Nne n’eku nwa"
  • "Obi Dimkpa" (1980)
  • "Ote nkwu"

References

  1. ^ a b Olawoyin, Oladeinde (20 November 2017). "Former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme, is dead". Premium Times Nigeria.
  2. ^ Adeoye, Gbenro (23 February 2020). "Dad could stay up all night composing music – Prof Laz Ekwueme's son". Punch Newspapers. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  3. ^ Adekunle, Edwina (13 February 2016). "Professor Lazarus EN Ekwueme". onlinenigeria. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  4. ^ "Meet Prof. Lazarus Edward Nnanyelu Ekwueme. He is popularly known as Laz Ekwueme, a musicologist, composer, scholar and actor". Leadership Scorecard. 20 July 2022. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
  5. ^ Leslie R. Saunders; Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko, "Conversation on African Music", Music Educators Journal, Vol. 71, No. 9, May, 1985.
  6. ^ Citation of Prof Ekwueme, NNMA.
  7. ^ Lazarus E. N. Ekwueme, "African-Music Retentions in the New World", The Black Perspective in Music, Vol. 2, No. 2 Autumn.