Geoffrey Oryema

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Geoffrey Oryema (born April 16, 1953 in Soroti , † June 22, 2018 in Lorient ) was a musician from Uganda .

Geoffrey Oryema at a concert in Mainz, March 13, 2001

biography

Oryema's family belongs to the Acholi ethnic group . Oryema was still a child when he moved to the capital, Kampala , with his parents, who were part of the country's new intellectual elite after Uganda's independence in 1962 . His father Erinayo Wilson Oryema , an English teacher, also taught him in music and his mother, head of the dance group The Heartbeat of Africa , it took on tour. After graduating from high school, Oryema studied drama at Uganda's National School of Dramatic Art and wrote his first plays , inspired by Bertolt Brecht , Konstantin Sergejewitsch Stanislawski and Jerzy Grotowski . When his father, now a Ugandan minister, died under dubious circumstances in the custody of dictator Idi Amin's security forces , Geoffrey Oryema fled into exile in Paris in 1977. Here he kept himself afloat with odd jobs and recorded some demos , which eventually ended up in the hands of the organizers of the World Music Festival WOMAD . Festival founder Peter Gabriel invited Oryema and in 1990 released his debut album Exile , produced by Brian Eno , on his Real World label. After two more albums on Real World, Beat the Border (1994) Night to Night (1997), Oryema moved to Sony International and released the albums Spirit (2000) and Words (2004). In July 2005 he was one of the performers at the Live 8 concert in Cornwall and Edinburgh . He also devoted himself to peace work and the fight against child soldiers .

Oryema died in France in June 2018 at the age of 65 of complications from cancer.

Discography

  • Exile (1990)
  • Beat the Border (1993)
  • Night to Night (1996)
  • Spirit (2000)
  • The Odysseus / Best Of (2002)
  • Words (2004)
  • From the Heart (mp3: 2010, CD: 2011)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Le chanteur Geoffrey Oryema est mort. In: Le Parisien . June 23, 2018, accessed June 25, 2018 (French).
  2. ↑ Biography: Geoffrey Oryema. RFI Musique , May 2004, archived from the original on June 9, 2009 ; accessed on June 25, 2018 (English).
  3. ↑ a b Obituary Jazzthing
personal data
SURNAME Oryema, Geoffrey
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ugandan musician
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Soroti
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 2018
Place of death Lorient