Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko is a professionally trained operatic soprano, music educator, music critic, African ethnomusicologist, broadcaster, skits writer, choral conductor, and songwriter. Joy Nwosu was trained in operatic soprano in Italy and received her Ph.D. in music from Michigan State University, Ann Arbor; making her the second Nigerian female to earn a doctorate in music. This book addresses thought provoking issues such as feminine gender, it's a man's world, and the Nigerian factor. Other pertinent issues narrated in the book include the efficacy of prayer and spectacular triumphs by the power of God. The saga of Joy Nwosu encapsulates the ordeal women are constantly subjected to in a male chauvinistic society. This book is also laced with numerous fascinating photos of Joy Nwosu from 1960 to 2005. Nigerian journalists wrote rave reviews of Joy Nwosu's stunning performances and crowned her, "first lady of sound," "diva," "maestro," and "high priestess of Nigerian music;" titles that she rightfully earned and deserved for three pertinent reasons: (1) Joy Nwosu was the first professionally trained female musician in Nigeria to combine operatic singing with popular dance music; (2) she was the first trained female musician to set up a dance band in Nigeria; and (3) Joy Nwosu was the first trained female musician to release a Long Playing record in Nigeria.

Legend of the Walking Dead: Igbo Mythologies is a journey into the mysteries of life and death of the Igbos of Nigeria. The book draws readers into the Igbo people’s ancient and traditional beliefs about life and death. There is a very thin line dividing the land of the living and the land of the dead, so thin that spirits from both lands coexist. Sometimes, during the story, it is difficult to differentiate between the living and the dead. Both have bodies; the living existing in their bodies, while the dead exist in (are using) borrowed bodies. Fifteen-year-old Osondu has disappeared. His mother goes searching for her son and faces the same fate. She too goes missing. The gods are ever present, in control, and minister to both the living and the dead. This is because the gods minister to the spirits, not the bodies that harbor them. To the gods, the spirits of both the living and the dead are ever alive. The world of the traditional Igbo society is a world in which the dead visit and interact easily with the living. It is also a world in which most of the time the living are at the mercy of the gods.

In Mirror of Our Lives, four Nigerian women share the compelling tales of their troubled lives and failed marriages, revealing how each managed to not only survive, but triumph under difficult and repressive circumstances. Njide, Nneka, Miss Nelly, and Oby relive their stories of passion, deceit, heartache, and strength as they push through life-each on a unique journey to attain happiness, self-respect and inner peace. But none of the women's journeys is without misjudgments and missteps. Njide falls in love at first sight, marries Tunji too quickly, and is dismayed when Tunji shows his true colors. Nneka once thought that she and Oji were the perfect couple-until Oji traveled to the United States. Miss Nelly is a kind and good-natured woman who allows everyone to take advantage of her-even her husband, whom she married only for his name. But everyone wonders why Oby and Mat even married at all, for their marriage was a battle from the very beginning. The tales in Mirror of Our Lives: Voices of Four Igbo Women will inspire womenaround the world to never give up, to discover a sense of worth, and most of all, to learn to love themselves above everyone else.

Justina is every young woman who found herself alone in the world to fend for herself. It is the story of the pitfalls that await such a woman. It is the story of survival

The legendary Greek figure Orpheus was said to have possessed magical powers capable of moving all living and inanimate things through the sound of his lyre and voice. Over time, the Orphic theme has come to indicate the power of music to unsettle, subvert, and ultimately bring down oppressive realities in order to liberate the soul and expand human life without limits. The liberating effect of music has been a particularly important theme in twentieth-century African American literature. The nine original essays in Black Orpheus examines the Orphic theme in the fiction of such African American writers as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Nathaniel Mackey, Sherley Anne Williams, Ann Petry, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones, and Toni Morrison. The authors discussed in this volume depict music as a mystical, shamanistic, and spiritual power that can miraculously transform the realities of the soul and of the world. Here, the musician uses his or her music as a weapon to shield and protect his or her spirituality. Written by scholars of English, music, women's studies, American studies, cultural theory, and black and Africana studies, the essays in this interdisciplinary collection ultimately explore the thematic, linguistic structural presence of music in twentieth-century African American fiction.

Includes miscellaneous newsletters (Music at Michigan, Michigan Muse), bulletins, catalogs, programs, brochures, articles, calendars, histories, and posters.

In Mirror of Our Lives, four Nigerian women share the compelling tales of their troubled lives and failed marriages, revealing how each managed to not only survive, but triumph under difficult and repressive circumstances. Njide, Nneka, Miss Nelly, and Oby relive their stories of passion, deceit, heartache, and strength as they push through lifeeach on a unique journey to attain happiness, self-respect and inner peace. But none of the womens journeys is without misjudgments and missteps. Njide falls in love at first sight, marries Tunji too quickly, and is dismayed when Tunji shows his true colors. Nneka once thought that she and Oji were the perfect coupleuntil Oji traveled to the United States. Miss Nelly is a kind and good-natured woman who allows everyone to take advantage of hereven her husband, whom she married only for his name. But everyone wonders why Oby and Mat even married at all, for their marriage was a battle from the very beginning. The tales in Mirror of Our Lives: Voices of Four Igbo Women will inspire womenaround the world to never give up, to discover a sense of worth, and most of all, to learn to love themselves above everyone else.

CHRISTOPHER OYESIKU dazzled the Nigerian elitist music caucuses with his extraordinary bass voice and God-gifted talent for well over six decades. His outstanding performances brought smiles, laughter, joy, and admiration to the faces of his faithful patrons, patronesses, and audiences. Nigeria has never seen nor heard anything like Oyesikus magnifi cent voice that is best described as bel canto and basso profundo. With this sonorous voice, he always leaves an impeccable and memorable impression on his ardent afi cionados. He has performed before the cream of Nigerian society, African nations, dignitaries, and indeed, the Royal Family in Great Britain. Oyesiku is a professionally trained classical bass singer, choral conductor extraordinaire, music educator, erudite scholar, concert promoter, concert manager, concert connoisseur, and broadcaster. From a period that spanned 1963 to 1997, Oyesiku single-handedly directed four magnifi cent choirs: the Lagos Musical Society Choir, the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation Choir, the Oyo State College of Education Choir, and the University of Ibadan Choir. He trained these choirs to perform at a very enviable lofty standard that always leaves their audiences screaming for encore at the end of every concert. Their performances were consistently eclectic, electrifying, emotive, joyful, impeccable, crisp, energetic, fl awless, and intercultural. This book succinctly introduces musicians and enthusiasts to the performance of classical music in Nigeria through the life and stunning career of Christopher Oyesiku. His repertoire, bass solo recitals, and choral performances are indeed the epitome of art music concerts in the country. In this book, we can see how art music is taught and learned, organized, directed, performed, promoted, managed, disseminated, patronized, and preserved by the elitist group in modern day Nigeria. In other words, the Christopher Oyesiku concerts are representative of art music decorum in Nigeria, with particular emphasis on the performance practices, and a mirror through which one could examine the ethos of this brand of music in twenty-fi rst century Nigeria. GODWIN SADOH is a Nigerian ethnomusicologist, intercultural musicologist, composer, church musician, organist, pianist, choral conductor, and prolifi c publishing scholar with over 90 publications. His compositions have been performed and recorded worldwide. He is the fi rst African to receive a doctoral degree in organ performance from any institution in the world. Sadoh has taught at numerous institutions including the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Nigeria has been blessed with a few well-trained organist-composers since the arrival of Christianity in the most populous African country around the 1840s. The institutions established by European missionaries and the colonial administration had a great impact on the emergence of the 'Nigerian organ school'. The musicians had their formative periods at the mission schools, church choirs, and under organ playing apprenticeships. This book focuses on selected organ works by the most celebrated African art musician, Fela Sowande, a Nigerian organist-composer. Fela Sowande is the first African to popularize organ works by natives of Africa in Europe and the United States. He was one of the pioneer composers to incorporate indigenous African elements such as folksongs, rhythms and other types of traditional source materials in solo works for organ. He is considered the most prolific Nigerian composer for solo organ in Nigeria. The discussion of Sowande's music enunciates the relationship between traditional and contemporary musical processes in postcolonial Nigeria. A cultural and/or ethnomusicological analysis of Sowande's selected pieces for organ solo involves an examination of specific indigenous source materials such as rhythmic organization, melodic constructs/thematic materials (music communication), interrelations of music and dance, and elements of musical conception.