Having grown up in Romania to a Romanian mother and Nigerian father, I was always familiar with the music of Romania, but knew very little about African classical music.
Encouraged by my then musical partner Julian Lloyd Webber, who was convinced that I might find a rich heritage there, I set about researching. And what riches I discovered.
The best pieces of African classical music
Christian Onyeji: Ufie, Igbo Dance
My paternal grandfather was an Oja master player (Oja is an Igbo flute) and was often invited to perform at traditional ceremonies. Most African composers are inspired by the sounds of traditional African instruments when writing new works. Nigerian Igbo composer Christian Onyeji wrote Ufie, Igbo dance for piano, drawing inspiration from the Ufie percussion ensembles in the Anambra part of Igbo land of Eastern Nigeria.
Ufie is also the name of the percussion instrument, the wooden slit Ufie drum, performed only by the men who have achieved respectable status in society. Onyeji's piece is full of Igbo rhythms and melodies which encourage both the performer and the audience to dance.
JH Kwabena Nketia: Volta Fantasy
African Pianism refers to a piano style that expresses certain features of African traditional music. It's a style that has been adopted by many African composers including Professor Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia, a composer and ethnomusicologist from Ghana. Kwabena Nketia was one of the most significant musicians to compose and write on African musical aesthetics, emphasising that 'the music of Africa, like its language, is ethnic-bound. Each society practices its own variant.'
Volta Fantasy, from his African Pianism: Twelve Pedagogical Pieces, is a beautiful piano piece inspired by the Volta river, the largest river in Ghana and the source of the country's hydroelectric power. Nketia uses materials characteristic of the music of the communities that live in the area.
Ayo Bankole: African Suite
Ayo Bankole was one of Africa's most prolific composers. Despite his tragic murder at just 41, Bankole was able to leave a notable body of music. This included two piano sonatas, of which The Passion is particularly impressive, clearly showing his Christian inspiration.
In great contrast in terms of scale and inspiration, are two much lighter suites by Bankole, of which the better known is the African Suite, dating originally from 1957 and the Nigerian Suite.
Variations for Little Ayo was written for the composer’s son, Ayo Jr, now an established composer in his own right. Egun Variations is inspired by an Egun theme from the Yoruba land, Tona Nowe.
More African classical music to explore
David Earl: 'Princess Rainbow'
'Princess Rainbow' from Scenes from a South African Childhood by South African composer David Earl represents a musical evocation of the composer's younger years. It recalls an ongoing bedtime story invented by his father, which involved the adventures of a trout which lived in the Eerste River in Stellenbosch. Each of the nine pieces in the cycle opens with the same melodic quotation.
Born in Stellenbosch, South Africa, David Earl moved to England at 19. He has composed a number of major works, including five operas, eight ballets and three piano concertos, as well as seven other concertos.
Nabil Benabdeljalil: Nocturne No. 6
Leading North African composer Nabil Benabdeljalil, from Morocco, was trained at the Tchaikovsky Academy of Music in Kiev, while also studying traditional repertoire, including Arabic singing. His six Nocturnes for piano represent a wonderful synthesis of his various stylistic approaches, but Nocturne No. 6 is particularly special.
Written in 2020 at the end of the first lockdown, it is inspired by the composer's trip to the rock known as Imsfrane Cathedral, in Morocco's Atlas Mountains. As he describes it himself, 'In this piece I have tried to express the freedom found within nature, but it is also a spiritual quest, since God is to be found in the most magnificent and legitimate of his temples: Nature!'.
Fred Onovwerosuoke: 24 Studies in African Rhythms
A student of Kwabena Nketia [whose Volta Fantasy features above], Fred Onovwerosuoke was known to friends simply as FredO. He is now known internationally from his chant ‘Bolingo', which was used in the 2006 film The Good Shepherd, featuring Robert de Niro.
Born in Ghana to Nigerian parents before settling in the USA, Onovwerosuoke has spent time in over 30 African countries researching and analysing Africa's rich traditions. His 24 Studies in African Rhythms is arguably the most important work by a black African composer for solo piano to have appeared in recent decades.
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Three more pieces of African classical music by great African composers
Justinian Tamusuza: Mu Kkubo Ery’Omusaalaba (‘On the Way of the Cross’)
Ugandan composer Tamusuza (b. 1951) started out learning traditional music from his native land, and learned to play the endigidi (tube-fiddle). He then studied music in Belfast and America. This globe-trotting musical education can be heard in the cosmopolitan soundworld of Tamusuza’s works, which blend Ugandan musical traditions and Western classical structures.
For an introduction, try the first movement ('Ekitundu Ekisooda') of his first string quartet, Mu Kkubo Ery’Omusaalaba (‘On the Way of the Cross’), below. The ever-adventurous Kronos Quartet included this movement on their landmark 1992 album Pieces of Africa.
Fela Sowande: African Suite for Strings
The Nigerian composer Fela Sowande (1905-87) composed widely across various forms including songs, organ and choral works and songs, and pieces for both orchestra and solo instrument. His best known work is probably the luminous African Suite (1944), which is a vivid mingling of European and West African musical traditions.
Sowande had strong ties with the UK, moving in London to study engineering in 1936. Music was clearly his first love, though, and he earned money playing the organ in theatres and churches, while also finding the time to set up a jazz septet. Later, studying at the University of London and Trinity College of Music, his mentors included the composer Edmond Rubbra.
Stella Rambisai Chiweshe: 'Rwavasekuru'
Zimbabwean musician Stella Rambisai Chiweshe (1946-2023) is known as the 'Queen of the mbira'. The latter is a traditional Zimbabwean instrument that consists of a wooden board fitted with metal tines, and it's played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the tines.
Chiweshe became a virtuoso mbira player in her twenties. This was a bold move on two levels: at the time women were not allowed to play the instrument, and moreover the incumbent British colonial regime had put a ban on all Zimbabwean cultural practices, with playing a traditional instrument such as the mbira punishable with a prison sentence.
After Zimbabwe gained its independence, Chiweshe was at the forefront of the growth and spread of a naitnal musical culture. She's now widely known as ‘Ambuya Chinyakare', or 'Grandmother of Traditional Music'.