Ajo Oloyin

African Suite No. 6.
For nine Recorders
Score and eight Parts.

First Movement: Ade si ilu nla (The Arrival in the Big City) SSAATTBB (K)
Second Movement: Oju orun kun fun irawo (Starry Sky) AATTTBBB (K)
Third Movement: Irin inu oko oju omi (Boat Trip) SSAATTBB (K)

I love traveling. Going by train through another country, riding by bicycle along an unknown river or passing the sea with a ship gives me a deep feeling of happiness. I try to capture this feeling within this piece. Ajo Oloyin is Yoruba and means honey travel (sweet travel). It can be performed by an octet as well as by a recorder orchestra. I wish to thank Andreas Habert who invited me to the Congress of the ERTA (European Recorder Teachers Association) Switzerland in September 2014. He asked me to hold a workshop about my African recorder compositions and immediately I knew that I did not only want to talk about existing compositions but to rehearse a new one. So I tried to compose Ajo oloyin in a way that would allow us to learn it in the 70 minutes the workshop would last. Swiss people are very punctual: We exactly had 70 minutes - and we managed to play the whole piece! The lowest bass part was supported by a subbass recorder which sounded really impressing. So I added an optional ninth part for a Contra Bass Recorder, that can be included or left out.

I wish to thank the recorder teachers of the Hamburg Youth Music School for the wonderful recording they made of the piece in May 2016 under the conduct of Barbara Niestroj-Pawek. The second piece, starry sky, is one of my absolute favorites.