Nigerian Me - ROMANIAN ME … BRITISH ME

I was born in Romania to a Nigerian Igbo father and a Romanian mother. Growing up in a mixed background, I had the greatest advantage of an upbringing influenced by two different cultures and I developed a profound understanding of both worlds.
My father was a pediatrician in Romania - he came from Nigeria to study medicine and met my Romanian mother. I went through the Romanian music school system - Romania has a long, deep-rooted tradition of classical music and has produced great pianists such as Dinu Lipatti and Radu Lupu -, I studied at the National Conservatoire in Bucharest before coming to Birmingham to do an MA and was later awarded the Offenheim scholarship to study at Trinity College of Music in London. Until then, my musical influences were mainly Western classical and my repertoire consisted of the greatest piano works. I often performed Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Ravel and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1.

London felt like home to me and with the support of my extended Nigerian family who lived in London I decided to settle here and England became my adoptive country. In Nigeria you only claim your father’s country and when visiting Nigeria I was received as ‘the daughter of the land’ and I had to live up to that role and all the responsibilities that come with it, and adjust my beliefs according to the land’s cultural traditions. This also gave me the chance to learn more about my Nigerian paternal grandfather, ANINYE OMORDIA, who had been a famous traditional musician, often being invited to perform at the kings’ courts in the Kingdoms of Ika and the Benin Kingdom. Grandfather performed traditional music on the owka akpere, a flute of the Anioma region of Nigeria, accompanied by percussion instruments. While I never met my grandfather, I grew up with my father singing Igbo traditional songs, and it was natural that later in my life I would want to discover more about African classical music. My research lead me to the discovery of an entire School of African Art Music that emerged in the 20th century. Hundreds of composers from West Africa (Nigerian and Ghana) and North Africa (Egypt) who studied in Europe returned to their home countries and developed this richly diverse musical genre, a blend of African traditional music and Western classical music. Gradually, other African countries followed suit. The African classical piano repertoire is huge and my journey of discovery produced an African Pianism series of solo albums and the launching of The African Concert Series in London, with the aim of bringing this repertoire to a wider audience. My journey to Nigeria also gave me the chance to work with the musicians of Musical Society of Nigeria and I performed many times in Lagos and Abuja.

Concomitantly with my exploring the African piano repertoire, I began exploring English Music. While at Birmingham Conservatoire, I won the Delius Prize adjudicated by world renowned British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber. Julian loved my playing and later asked me to become his duo partner. Between 2012-2014, Julian and I performed chamber music by British composers John Ireland, Frederic Delius and Benjamin Britten (a student of John Ireland’s) many times on tour in the UK until his forced retirement in 2014. After Julian’s retirement, I continued my exploration of the British repertoire with special focus on John Ireland’s piano music which appealed to me. His virtuosic writing coupled with a very individualistic musical language made for successful performances of programmes made entirely of his piano music. During 2014-2017, I recorded and performed English Music in solo recitals, chamber concerts and with orchestras in the UK and Romania; in 2019 I published my Doctoral thesis at the National Music University in Bucharest on the piano music of John Ireland.

Today, I am asked “who am I as a pianist"? I believe we become the result of our environment, of our choices and opportunities. I’ve always loved playing the piano and I’ve always chosen to perform music that speaks to me, so it is natural for me to perform Western repertoire but also African repertoire and English Music.