Music Education in Africa, a cura di E. Achieng’Akuno

Abstract

The miscellaneous volume Music education in Africa, edited by Emily Achieng'Akuno, presents a comprehensive reflection on music education in Africa, focused on the goal of ‘africanising the music classroom ‘, as the title of the editor’s introduction states. A reflection on the decolonization of curricula and pedagogical goals, which began in the 1970s on the continent, is what unites these twenty-one articles, divided into theoretical contributions, historical reconstructions of the educational-music experience in some countries, and practical proposals for activities in the various African contexts. Many of the authors were inspired both by cross-cultural perspectives and by the definition of ‘African musical arts‘ coined by Meki Nzewi (among the authors of the volume), one of the fathers of Nigerian musical didactics, to describe the inextricable synthesis of dance, sung poetry, instrumental music and visual arts that characterizes performances, and hence educational thought, on a pan-African level.