Ngobili Chijioke

Biography

A Bachelor of Arts Degree holder in Music, Chijioke Ngobili was the Best Graduating Music Student of the University of Nigeria in 2011. He is currently an Academic Staff of the Department of Music, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. His B.A composition/performance thesis, titled OREGWA (OR-in for ‘music’ in Yoruba, EG-wu for ‘music’ in Igbo and WA-ka  for ‘music’ in Hausa: “OREGWA”) is an instrumental-vocal work of three movements for mixed ensembles of African and Western which explored little of some of the musical cultures of the Yoruba and Hausa and more of his ethnicity, Igbo. An example of an art music that seeks to identify and unite the three major ethnicities of Nigeria, OREGWA (First Movement of OREGWA here: https://www.reverbnation.com/chijiokengobili/song/24115413-oregwa-instrumental-music-africanwestern)has been praised by professional and non-professional musicians as “Nigerian in character”, and has remained one of the best African art music works with a representation of ‘African Identity’ ever created by a Nigerian professional musicologist and musician. Aside music teaching, performance and research in musical arts, Chijioke is a writer and commentator with a special bias for socio-politics and socio-cultural evolution in Nigerian contemporary societies. Some of his writings – extra-musical – have appeared on the Nigerian SUN newspaper, REX newspaper (a publication of the Catholic Diocese of Aba), Blackboyreview (online blog), etc. He has done several compositions and arrangements (instrumental and vocal) on different genres which include the official orchestration of the University of Nigeria Anthem—(composed originally for voices in 1965 by Sir Sam Ojukwu)—in 2010 while a 3rd year music undergraduate. Chijioke is about obtaining a Master of Arts Degree in Music from the University of Nigeria with his thesis on the adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s widely-acclaimed novel, Things Fall Apart to a musical/opera that promises to represent the ‘African Identity’ in modern African Musical Theater. That attempt is done using some of the ethnomusicological-compositional approaches like “Research-Composition” (as pioneered and exemplified by Akin Euba, Meki Nzewi, Joshua Uzoigwe, Christian Onyeji, Benedict Agbo et al). Chijioke hails from Ihiala in Anambra State of the South-Eastern Nigeria and speaks and writes Igbo and English fluently.

Research Interest

African art compositions for voices and mainly instruments wherein the African Identity is represented in works played by Western or African instrument(s) or vocalized