Arguably Africa’s foremost pianist, Olatunji Akin Euba has died. The compositions of the great musician, who died on Tuesday 14th of April, 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.
Akin was born on 28 April 1935 in Lagos, Nigeria, & 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.
Akin held 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 also served as a senior research fellow at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Nigeria.
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