Olufela Sowande (Fela) Obafunmilayo (1905-1987)

January 23, 2013 
/ Contributed By: Hazel Singer

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Fela Sowande

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Musician, composer, professor, and conductor Fela Sowande was born May 1905 in Abeokuta, Nigeria.   He was the son of Emmanuel Sowande, who was an Anglican priest and influential in the development of Nigerian sacred music.  Fela Sowande was a musician and composer of music in the classical European style.

Sowande studied at CMS Grammar School and King’s College, Lagos and received his Fellowship Diploma (FRCO) from the Royal College of Organists in Lagos.  He also worked as a band leader and was heavily influenced by jazz and popular music as well as the church music of his father and mentor.  After moving to London, UK in 1934, Sowande received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of London and became a Fellow of Trinity College of Music.

In Britain, Sowande worked as a church organist, a theatre organist, a dance pianist, bandleader, and choirmaster. His organ music compositions were based on Nigerian melodies which had great resonance with the growing population of African and Caribbean immigrants to Great Britain.

Sowande was a highly prolific composer in a variety of genres: organ, choral, solo, and orchestral works as well as an author of four books. He composed music for the British Ministry of Information during World War II. After the War he worked for the BBC Africa Service and then in 1953 moved back to Nigeria to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation.

Sowande’s academic record was as geographically wide-ranging as his research interests in African music. He received a United States State Department Leaders and Specialists grant which afforded him the opportunity in 1957 to present organ recitals in New York, Boston, Massachusetts, and Chicago, Illinois, and to lecture on his research.  The Rockefeller Foundation later sponsored his work in New York.  He was a visiting scholar at Northwestern University’s anthropology department for the academic year 1961-1962 and he later studied composition at Princeton University.  Sowande received a grant from the Ford Foundation (1962-1965) to conduct research on Yoruba religion.  In 1966 he was awarded a Nigerian government grant to study and write about Nigerian music.  He was a research fellow at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria from 1965 to 1968.

Fela Sowande moved permanently to the United States in 1968, taking an academic position first at Howard University, Washington, D.C.  until 1972, then took a position at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) until 1976.  His last academic position was at Kent State University in Ohio, from 1976, where he remained with his wife Eleanor McKinney, until his retirement in 1982. He died in 1987 in Ravenna, Ohio from complications associated with a stroke.

About the Author

Author Profile

Hazel Singer received her BA in Urban Planning at the University of Washington, focusing on Community Organization. She received her MA in Economic Geography at the University of Washington. Her thesis was on The Role of Federal Funding of R&D and its Impact on Technological Change and Regional Economic Growth.

Hazel’s work experience relates back to and is reinforced by her training in Economic Geography and Urban Planning: understanding how systems (transportation, social services, manufacturing, health, small and large businesses, communities, government, etc) function in a region; what are the constraints and obstacles to successes and efficiency; and how to increase participation by all citizens in these processes so that they have a stake in positive outcomes.

Hazel grew up in South Africa and her life and philosophy have been informed and shaped by her parents’ anti-apartheid activities.

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Singer, H. (2013, January 23). Olufela Sowande (Fela) Obafunmilayo (1905-1987). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/sowande-olufela-fela-obafunmilayo-1905-1987/

Source of the Author's Information:

AfriClassical.com African Heritage in Classical Music, http://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/sowande.html; Doiminique-René De Lerma, “African Heritage Symphonic Series,” in De Lerma, “The music of the Black composer,” http://www.africanchorus.org/Artists/Sowande.htm.

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