Ayo Bankole

Bankole in 1960

Ayo Bankole (b. Jos, May 17, 1935;^[1] d. Lagos, November 6, 1976^[2]) was a composer and organist from the Yoruba ethnic group in southwest Nigeria.

Early life and education

He was born into a musical family: his father, Theophilus Abiodun Bankole was an organist and Choirmaster at St. Luke's Anglican Church in Jos. His mother was a music instructor for several years at Queen's School, Ede, Osun State, a Federal government high school. As a young man Ayo Bankole studied in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he met the young drama student and poet Brian Edward Hurst. Ayo set one of Hurst's poems to music and this was performed as a choral composition at the Guildhall School in 1960. The poem was titled "Children of the Sun." Hurst also took a photograph of the Nigerian composer standing outside the Guildhall School. Ayo also studied at Clare College, Cambridge. Bankole received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Musical career

Bankole returned to Nigeria in 1966 and was appointed Senior Producer in Music at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Lagos where he worked until 1969, after which he was appointed lecturer in music at the School of African and Asian Studies, University of Lagos. He worked as music educator, composer, choral conductor, performer and musicologist with independent choral groups including the Choir of Angels (students from three prominent high schools in Lagos: Reagan Memorial, Lagos Anglican Girls Grammar School, and the Methodist Girls High School), Lagos University Musical Society, Nigerian National Musico-Cultural Society, and Chapel of the Healing Cross Choir, all in the Lagos. He wrote a great deal of Christian liturgical music in the Yoruba language, and his compositions show elements of both traditional Nigerian music and Western classical music. He also composed theme songs for some Nigerian television drama series.

Murder

In 1976, Ayo was brutally murdered with his wife in Lagos by a half-brother. A kind and humanitarian man, he is much missed by the Nigerian musical community.^[1]

References

1. Sadoh; Godwin. "Ayo Bankole at 80". Questia. Musical Times.
2. Schmidt, Cynthia. "Bankole, Ayo." in International Dictionary of Black Composers. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. pp. 75-80. ISBN 1884964273

• Euba, Akin. "Ayo Bankole: A View of Modern African Art Music Through the Works of a Nigerian Composer." In Essays on music in Africa, no. 1 (1988), pp. 87–117. Bayreuth: IWALEWA-Haus.
• Horne, Aaron. Keyboard Music of Black Composers: A Bibliography.
• Omojola, Olabode F. (1994). "Contemporary Art Music in Nigeria: An Introductory Note on the Works of Ayo Bankole." Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, v. 64, no. 4 (1994), pp. 533–543.
• Sadoh, Godwin (2007). Intercultural Dimensions in Ayo Bankole's Music. iUniverse. ISBN 0-595-46436-X. ISBN 978-0-595-46436-4.