For her fascinating new Somm release, ‘African Pianism’, Nigerian-Romanian pianist Rebecca Omordia has chosen music from three Nigerian composers, Ayo Bankole (1935 76), Akin Euba (1935-2020) and Christian Onyeji (b1967); two Ghanaians, Kwabena Nketia (1921-2019) and Fred Onovwerosuoke (b1960); a South African, David Earl (b1951); and a Moroccan, Nabil Benabdeljalil (b1972). The music of these seven composers is as wide-ranging as you might imagine, given their geographic and cultural diversity.

Nketia’s African Pianism was largely composed during the 1960s, around the time that the University of Ghana opened its School for Performing Arts, to enlarge the literature available to African piano students beyond the best Western teaching pieces. The challenges they pose are considerable, and Omordia’s performances are models of clarity and imaginative realisation. Onyeji sought to translate a number of Nigerian drumming techniques to the piano in his three-movement Ufie (Igbo Dance), its extraordinarily varied texutres and colours unfolding over the course of 14 minutes. Omordia commissioned the Five Kaleidoscopes from Onovwerosuoke, who grew up in Ghana, the child of Nigerian parents of the Igbo tribe, and is now a US citizen. Of all the works on the album, the Kaleidoscopes have the greatest affective range, which Omordia traverses with probative grace. Robert Matthew-Walker’s informative booklet notes describe Benabdeljalil as the most significant composer of concert music Morocco has produced. He is also the youngest composer represented here. His early En attente du printemps was composed in Kyiv, and it is difficult not to detect a slightly Scriabinesque flavour in the series of Nocturnes he began in 1992.

Finally, one cannot escape a sense of gratitude to Omordia, whose musical curiosity and imagination, bolstered by an admirably versatile technique, bring us a bounty of largely unfamiliar yet richly rewarding music.