CONTEMPLATING THE CONTEMPORARY NIGERIA IN SAM OJUKWU’S PROGNOSTIC COMPOSITION

Abstract

Composers are very much concerned with the world of feelings. Personal life, personal friendship, the ups and downs of joy, happiness, and depression, play important roles in their musical output. The art of composition remains an approach to creative writing which brings out a synthesis of musical ideas, motifs and sonorities, to get at that which originally will not be reachable. However, many choral composers have not considered all of the foregoing as diverse media of speaking to the future, mood and emotions of the consumers of their compositional products. This paper attempts to dissect a textual analysis of Sam Ojukwu’s composition Chineke Doo: A Prayer for Nigeria to x-ray its relevance to the present-day Nigerian society. This is a right step in the way of mentorship for budding composers who desire to make a meaningful contribution to the creative industry—attitudinally, mentally, psychologically and otherwise. This study adopts Dan Agu’s (1999) criteria for identification and analysis of African songs in which texts examination form part of the process for consideration.