Nigerian composer, Akin Euba is dead
Nigerian composer, musicologist, and pianist, Akin Euba is dead. He died on the evening of Tuesday, April 14, 2020 few weeks after his 85th birthday.
Dr. Akin Euba was Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh until his retirement in 2011. He was professor and director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Lagos.
His compositions 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.