TUNDE JEGEDE - KORA CONCERTO

KORA CONCERTO

TUNDE JEGEDE

SONGWRITER: TUNDE JUGEDE

COUNTRY: NIGERIA

ALBUM: STILL MOMENT

LABEL: AFRICAN GUILD RECORDS (???)

GENRE: AFRICAN CLASSICAL MUSIC

YEAR: 2014(???)

 

         The Kora Concerto was written during my time living in Nigeria. It is in three movements and is influenced by various musical traditions of West Africa as well as Rodrigo's celebrated guitar concerto. It loosely follows the structure of that concerto with a medium-tempo first movement, slow second movement and lively up-tempo finale. Somehow in this kora concerto I wanted to capture the musical worlds of West Africa and particularly the Kora whilst remaining true to the classical tradition in much the same way as Rodrigo was able to do with the Spanish folk influences in his concerto.

         It is a fine balance to maintain integrity in two traditions at once and I hope this piece has managed to do this successfully. Creating a kora concerto that can also be played by a traditional kora player is something that I have wanted to do for many years.

        Tunde Jegede (born 28 January 1972) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist in contemporary classical, African and pop music, who is of Nigerian descent and born in England and as a child travelled to Africa to learn the art of the kora. He is a producer-songwriter and has worked across several genres both as a performer (cello, kora, piano and percussion) and producer. He is a master kora player, and specializes in the West African classical music tradition which dates from the period of Sundiata. His sister is Sona Jobarteh, who is the first female kora virtuoso to come from a griot family. His father is Nigerian artist Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede.

        Tunde Jegede was born in London in 1972 to a Nigerian father and English mother (of Irish descent - the painter/filmmaker Galina Chester). His father Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede was artist-in-residence at North London's Keskidee Centre, Britain's first Black Arts Centre, where Tunde's appreciation of African diasporic culture was initiated and nurtured. From an early age he was exposed to resident and visiting artists who worked in a multi-disciplinary mode, including Bob Marley, Walter Rodney, Edward Brathwaite, Angela Davis and Linton Kwesi Johnson. It was here that his path as an artist began.

         Jegede's apprenticeship in African music began in 1978 and was further developed in 1982 when he first went to The Gambia to study the ancient griot tradition of West Africa, with Amadu Bansang Jobarteh, Master of the Kora (West African harp-lute). The Jobarteh family are one of five principal musician families within this hereditary oral tradition, which dates back to at least the 13th century. Jegede's appreciation of Western Classical music began with his grandfather's love of Bach and by observing his work as a church organist.

           Tunde also studied cello from the age of eight, and over the years was taught by people from the Classical world, including Alfia Bekova, Elma de Bruyne, Joan Dickson and Raphael Wallfisch at the Purcell School and later the Guildhall School of Music.

            In 1988 Jegede became fascinated with jazz and worked and toured with ex-members of the Jazz Warriors founded by Courtney Pine and Cleveland Watkiss. Jegede formed his own jazz ensemble, The Jazz Griots, with the purpose of exploring the connections between African and African diasporic forms of music.

         In 1995, a BBC TV documentary called Africa I Remember was done on Tunde Jegede's music and focused on his orchestral work. In this programme, he performed new compositions alongside the London Sinfonietta, which was conducted by Markus Stenz.

           Over the years, Jegede has kept his creative diversity intact by working closely with singers, vocalists, and spoken-word artists from a wide range of traditions, including opera, pop, R'n'B, reggae, hip hop, and jazz. In 2002, he started ACM Productions with the primary goal of creating accessible quality productions across a small spectrum of genres, namely: Urban, Pop, Classical and jazz.

            The Kora Concerto was written during my time living in Nigeria. It is in three movements and is influenced by various musical traditions of West Africa as well as Rodrigo's celebrated guitar concerto. It loosely follows the structure of that concerto with a medium-tempo first movement, slow second movement and lively up-tempo finale.

       Somehow in this kora concerto I wanted to capture the musical worlds of West Africa and particularly the Kora whilst remaining true to the classical tradition in much the same way as Rodrigo was able to do with the Spanish folk influences in his concerto.

           It is a fine balance to maintain integrity in two traditions at once and I hope this piece has managed to do this successfully. Creating a kora concerto that can also be played by a traditional kora player is something that I have wanted to do for many years.

      - Tunde Jegede - Kora soloist Renu - tabla & congas PSAPPHA ENSEMBLE Conrad Marshall - flute Rachael Clegg - oboe Dov Goldberg - clarinet Sarah Nixon - bassoon Andrew Budden - French horn Tracey Redfern - trumpet Gemma Beeson - piano Tim Williams - percussion Benedict Holland - violin Simon Gilks - violin Rose Redgrave - viola Jennifer Langridge - cello James Manson - double bass Tunde Jegede - Profile Tunde Jegede is a composer and musician who has been steeped in the traditions of European and African classical music for the last 30 years. His music has been performed all over the world in concert halls such as Carnegie Hall (New York), the Royal Albert Hall (London) and the Basilique (Paris) by international orchestras and artists including; the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the London Sinfonietta, the Brodsky Quartet, the Smith Quartet and by the percussion soloist, Evelyn Glennie. Tunde is also a pioneer of African Classical Music and has a deep knowledge of traditional music and culture. As the founder of the African Classical Music Ensemble, Tunde has performed and recorded with some of Africa's finest artists including Toumani Diabaté, Oumou Sangaré, Juldeh Camara, Bodé Lawal and the Pan African Orchestra . From an early age, Tunde was uniquely schooled in both Western and African Classical Music. He attended the Purcell School of Music, UK's first specialist music school conservatoire and also studied the music of the Kora (African Harp-Lute) and the Griot tradition under the Gambian Master of the Kora, Amadu Bansang Jobarteh, in a hereditary tradition that dates back over 700 years. From this unusual parallel education, Tunde gained a deep understanding and appreciation of both forms of music and their distinct legacies, and all these strands and influences have since informed his music and work as an instrumentalist, teacher, and international classical composer. His music has since taken him all over the world and he has written three full-scale operas, twenty symphonic works and he has worked with over a hundred orchestras and chamber groups. Tunde has recorded four solo albums including his seminal debut album, 'Lamentation' and 'Still Moment' a meditative album of solo Kora. His new solo kora and solo cello albums, 'Heritage' and ‘Testimony’ were both released in 2014. In that same year he was appointed Artistic Director of the MUSON (Musical Society of Nigeria) Centre and School of Music in Lagos, Nigeria where he is now based and has since established his own concert series, New Horizons.