Meet Prof. Laz Ekwueme, The Music Icon And Traditional Ruler Of Oko

Prof. Lazarus Edward Nnanyelu Ekwueme popularly known as Laz Ekwueme is a musicologist, composer, scholar and actor.
He is the traditional ruler of Oko in Orumba North LGA of Anambra State.

He is one of the pioneer lecturers of music in Nigeria and also a prolific writer. He is a scholar who has written numerous articles and books on music especially the role of music in the lives of Africans and Africans in diaspora and has earned a total of 10 diplomas in music and drama from universities in the UK.

1962, he obtained the professional teaching diploma, Licentiate of the Guildhall School of Music.

While studying in the UK, he embraced the theatre and he was an actor in some African films produced by the African Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. He returned to Nigeria, where he took up a faculty position at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. As a lecturer of music composition, theory, history, singing and conducting, he was an important member in the pioneering Nigerian music department at Nsukka, which was the first to award music degrees in the country. He also gave considerable attention to choral music, organising the University of Nigeria Choral Society, a group of foreign and local students who performed regularly in Nsukka.

He has acted in more than 100 Nollywood movies which include for Lords of the Game, Igodo, Senator, Love Story, etc.

Some of his works are;

* Teasers: Poems, proverbs, and puns, 1993
* Choir training and choral conducting for Africans. 1993
* Essays on the Theory of African Music, 2004
* Missa Africana
* A Night in Bethlehem (1963)
* Piano Concerts in Re (1962)
* Rhapsody Nigeriana
* Hombe (Kenyan Folk Song) (1968)
* Beware (Negro Spiritual)
* Zidata Mo Nso nke Gi
* Nwa n’akwa akwa (1972)
* Elimeli (1979)
* Nne n’eku nwa
* Obi Dimkpa (1980)
* Ote nkwu

He is the younger brother to Nigeria’s former Vice-president, Alex Ekueme.

Culled From Igbo History