juwon ogungbe composer

Juwon has composed music for productions presented by theatre companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre, London International Festival of Theatre, Theatre for a New Audience (New York, USA) and the Young Vic/Barbican Centre’s “Young Genius” season. In Dance he has worked with Greenwich and Docklands International Festival, Union Dance, Badejo Arts amongst others. He has also composed for several BBC Radio Drama productions. In Film and Television, Juwon has composed for Thames TV, Channel 4, Sankofa Films and several small independent production companies.

For his own groups and ensembles, Juwon has created up to 10 music theatre productions, the most celebrated of these is “Early Morning Wahala… An Illegal Immigrant Speaks” (1992/3) He also composed an opera for Arun Youth Opera, entitled “The Green Lady” (2003).Juwon was commissioned by The Southbank Centre and Lambeth Music Service to compose “Initiation Songs” a song cycle for the Africa ’05 Festival. The piece was performed by over 1000 London school children and was premiered in the Royal Festival Hall in 2005.

band leader

Juwon has been a band leader since the mid 1980s. His music has always drawn from an eclectic range of influences including music from all over the African continent, Western Pop, Jazz, Blues, Reggae and Western Art Music.
A singer-pianist, he has performed in a wide variety of group permutations, ranging from Duo and Trios that were regular performers at the original Jazz Café in London’s Newington Green, to a Big Band that featured several members of the Jazz Warriors that toured though England in the mid 1990s. Juwon has also performed high profile solo concerts. He once opened for King Sunny Ade at the Royal Festival Hall, and in 2008 he performed as the piano accompanist to 2 African films in the Barbican Centre as part of the London African Film Festival After a 9 year break, Juwon has formed a new band which will perform some of his vast repertoire of songs from before, alongside new material.