As March 13 approaches, I remember Fela Sowande, who left us twenty three years ago to the day.
Born in western Nigeria, on May 29 1905 to Egba parents, Fela Sowande is described as being the most distinguished and internationally known African composer - the most significant pioneer composer of works in the European classical idiom. He attended the Church Missionary Society Grammar School after which he attended Kings College, Lagos. The young Sowande was a committed student of the organ and by the time he left Kings College, he was an accomplished pianist and deputy organist at Christ Church Cathedral, also in Lagos. He was introduced to jazz in 1932 and set up the Triumph Dance Club Orchestra - he was also a member of a jazz group, The Chocolate Dandies.Sowande moved to London to study Civil Engineering and supported himself by playing jazz. He decided to study Music (instead of Engineering) and attended the University of London and Trinity College of Music. By 1935 Sowande had started to face nationalistic impulses and expressed this in his work. His friends and contemporaries at the time included Paul Robeson and Fats Waller (whom he played duets with at the Florida Club in Mayfair), and his compositions were played on the BBC, where he served as theatre organist.
In 1943 he earned the Fellowship Diploma of the Royal College of Organists as well as the Limas Prize for music theory, the Harding Prize for his organ playing, and the Read Prize for the overall excellence of his examinations - this was in addition to obtaining his degree from the University of London.
During the war years he served in the Royal Air Force, but was released at the request of the Ministry of Information to go to the Colonial Film Unit as Musical Advisor. He was appointed organist and choir director of the West London Mission of the Methodist Church from 1945 to 1952 and returned to Nigeria in 1953 to become Head of Music and Music Research at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. He also became a Research Fellow at the University of Ibadan; and was awarded the MBE by the Queen in 1956, that same year he received a national honour from the Nigerian government.
Sowande travelled to the US in 1957 to give organ recitals in Boston, Chicago, and New York. He also gave lectures on the findings of his research on Yoruba folklore, mythology, and tradition. His last major musical work was Nigerian Folk Symphony - composed as part of the Independence Day celebrations in 1960. This particular composition demonstrates the composer's cultural nationalism and appreciation of Nigerian culture. It was performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1964, along with other pieces by Sowande, whose works span the entire spectrum of musical genres - vocal, solo, choral, piano, organ, and orchestra. It is said that his era introduced concert music to the Nigerian musical culture.
After 1960 Sowande worked mainly as a professor - he was Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University in the US, worked at Princeton University, and in 1968 he accepted a position at Howard University in Washington DC - a post he held until 1972 when he became professor of Black Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. His last position was in the Department of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University, which he held until his retirement in 1982.
Olufela Obafunmilayo Sowande died in Ohio on March 13, 1987; he was 82 years old.
It is for his strong sense of being that I particularly admire the maestro, who no doubt, would consider with disapproval, the blatant attempt by his compatriots to denounce their origins and to condemn their nation with careless abandon - especially when they criticize without offering tangible solutions to the problem. His message was one of recognition, respect and acknowledgement of one's roots. In one of his articles, Sowande translates an old Yoruba saying and writes "Not to know for sure where one is heading for carries no blame; but not to know where one has come from is unpardonable!"
Whilst advocating pride in one's origins the composer specifically lamented the fact that some Africans of his time were trying to be "more British than the British, more American than the Americans, and more French than the French!" Were he to be with us today, he would find that this remains the case. The average Nigerian would rather pontificate on the ills of the nation from their "secure" haven in California, or Birmingham, or Paris…or somewhere equally far away from their native land, whilst finding sanctity in the attempt at embracing or imbibing a different nationality.
Sowande was not against other cultures, in fact and in spite of being proud of his Yoruba origins, he spoke against what he termed "music apartheid". He advocated the harmonious interaction between races and nations - each learning from the other and sharing…but each recognising and respecting where the other has come from.
Today I honour one whose life and work reminds us that we can truly only ever be the best that we can be - wherever we may find ourselves on this Earth, if we stand firm in the understanding of exactly who we are, and where we have come from…
"…to lack conscious awareness of one's roots is to become a weed in the Garden of Life…Only when a seed begins to sprout its roots does it begin to live. Only then can it hope to realise its potentialities…The more deeply and powerfully entrenched its roots are in the soil native to it, the more able it is to weather all storms. So it is with a tree. So it is with every individual…Roots are the only absolutely reliable and fool-proof channel of communication with Life, the only authentic affirmation and confirmation of being, in the real sense, alive." Fela Sowande, Nigerian; composer; pianist; organist; conductor; nationalist…and philosopher extraordinaire.
