Biography

Bode Omojola is the Hammond-Douglass Five College Professor of Music. As a Five College Professor, he holds a joint appointment with all five institutions of the Five College Consortium: Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges, and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, USA. Omojola received his Ph.D. from the University of Leicester, England, and taught previously at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria and Northeastern University in Boston, USA.

His research focuses on the musics of Africa and the African diaspora, ranging from indigenous to contemporary traditions, as well as the works of neo-African composers of art music. He has held prestigious academic appointments, including the Radcliffe Fellowship in Musicology at Harvard University, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship at the University of Cologne, Germany, and the African Humanities Fellowship Program in African Music hosted jointly by the University of Ghana and Northwestern University. In 2019, he was awarded the Meribeth E. Cameron Faculty Award in acknowledgment of his exemplary scholarship.

 Omojola combines scholarly work with composition. His publications include numerous articles and reviews in peer-reviewed journals like Ethnomusicology, British Forum for Ethnomusicology, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Research in African Literatures, and Black Music Research Journal. His books include Yorùbá Music in the Twentieth Century: Identity, Agency, and Performance Practice (University of Rochester Press), Popular Music in Western Nigeria: Theme, Style, and Patronage (Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique), and Nigerian Art Music: with an Introductory Study of Ghanaian Art Music (Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique).

Omojola’s compositions cover a variety of media, including piano, chamber music, choral works, and operas. His most recent opera, Funmilayo, is based on a libretto on the anti-colonial activism of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (1900-1978). The opera was premiered in April 2023 by the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra, the Five College African Opera students, conducted by Ng Tian Hui.