Ayọ̀ Olúrántí

Ayọ̀ Olúrántí (formerly Ogúnrántí) studied Composition & Organ at the University of Southampton (UK), graduating with a first-class honours degree and holds a PhD in Composition & Theory from the University of Pittsburgh, USA. Having studied pre-colonial art Yorùbá musical forms such as the Yorùbá folk opera with Akin Eúbà in the USA, Ayọ̀ proceeded to Ìrágbìjí, Ọ̀sun State, Nigeria to study and record dùndún music - a Yorùbá instrumental genre. He applies the theoretical principles and instrumentation of dùndún music in his compositions. On a broader facet, Ayọ̀, who believes in both the traditional and the contemporary ‘experimental’ approaches to music within a postmodernist aesthetic, researches elements, processes and resources germane to the musical cultures of the Global South for use within his acoustic and electroacoustic compositional language. ​To celebrate 100 years of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), Ayọ̀ was commissioned to write the piece, MandEʋe, for Vertice Sonora. It was performed in a 2023 program of world premieres by European and African composers under the artistic direction of Lukas Ligeti in Spain and South Africa. Olúrántí was also commissioned in 2022 by Ensemble Recherche (Freiburg, Germany) to compose the piece, Iná Ràn, under the aegis of Goethe-Institut (Manheim, Germany) as part of the Postcolonial Recherche project. His opera, Ọmọ Àgbẹ̀, was premiered by the James Madison University Opera Theatre in 2022 as part of the project, “Enriching and Decolonizing the Opera”.  Ayọ̀'s Hẹlẹlẹ was premiered at the 2024 World Choir Games in Auckland, New Zealand.