BALLANTA-TAYLOR, NICHOLAS JULIUS GEORGE
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Nicholas Julius George Ballanta-Taylor (1893-1962) was a musicologist, organist, and composer.
PHOTO CAPTION: Nicholas Julius George Ballanta-Taylor. SOURCE: EA Library
He was born in Freetown and educated at the local Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) Grammar School, and at Fourah Bay College. While in government service in the Gambia in 1914, he observed that a Bambara flutist produced a note between B-natural and B-flat, a note which he could not match on his harmonium. This prompted a search into the nature of African music, which took him to many parts of West and Central Africa, America, and Europe. In 1921, in the United States, he studied the affinity between Black American and African music. Aided by funds from George Peabody, Ballanta studied piano with John Orth and composition under Yacehia of the Boston Conservatory. He graduated from the Institute of Musical Arts in 1924.
From 1924 to 1926, he toured Africa collecting specimens of musical forms. On a Guggenheim award, he did theoretical work on musical scales in Germany and carried out more field work in 1926-27. His completed manuscript, “The Aesthetics of African Music,” which included 350 musical examples, is a unique document in this field.
Returning to Sierra Leone in 1933, he taught music, played the organ, and wrote and produced three operas -“Afiwa,” “Boima,” and “Effuah” -as well as a concert overture, because he worked at a time when little was known about African music, his original research was only fully appreciated after his death. The publication of his manuscript will place him among Africa’s great pioneers in the musical field.
ELDRED D. JONES
