BIOGRAPHY

A Life Steeped in Music

Genevieve Allotey-Pappoe is a Ghanaian researcher and composer born and raised in Nigeria. She started playing piano at the age of 5 under the tutelage of her father, a music educator and consultant based in Lagos. As a child, she won many piano competitions organised by the Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON) and passed the Royal School of Music London (ABRSM) grade 8 exams for piano and music theory. Genevieve was the music prefect and school pianist at her high school, Queens College Lagos.

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Genevieve is currently an assistant professor of music at Brown University. She recently completed a PhD in Musicology at Princeton University with a focus on ethnomusicology, sound studies, and popular music studies. She has a BA in Music and Sociology as well as an MPhil in Ethnomusicology and Composition from the University of Ghana where she was also a graduate teaching assistant. 

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As a scholar, she has presented her work at various international conferences in the USA, Canada, England, Ireland, Norway, Germany, and Ghana. She has two forthcoming publications.

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As a composer, Genevieve adopts an intercultural approach to composition by incorporating stylistic elements of West African and Western Classical music. From rhythms, vocal techniques, instruments and scales or modes, Genevieve often adopts Akin Euba's "Creative Ethnomusicology" method to composition. Her compositions have been performed in Ghana, Greece, USA and Nigeria.

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She plays the piano, djembe, and West African gyil xylophone.