Funmi Bucknor’s concert sparks Brazil-Nigeria music collaboration

A proposal to bring Afro-Brazilian Yoruba music to Lagos next year was one of the highlights of lyric soprano, Funmi Bucknor’s 2026 Global Melodies concert held in Lagos on Friday.

Brazil’s Consul General in Lagos, Ronaldo Vieira, made the proposal while speaking at the concert, inviting Bucknor to collaborate with Brazilian musicians and researchers to showcase the musical connections between Nigeria and Brazil.

The concert, held at the Alliance Française Mike Adenuga Centre, Ikoyi, featured operatic classics by Richard Strauss, Giacomo Puccini and Charles Gounod, alongside indigenous Nigerian music.

Vieira noted that Yoruba language and culture had been preserved among communities in Brazil, particularly through religion and music, following the transatlantic slave trade.

The diplomat subsequently proposed a collaboration between Nigerian and Brazilian creatives.

He said, “I’d like to make a proposal. Why don’t we collaborate with Brazilian musicians and researchers? Then next year we can bring some of this beautiful Afro-Brazilian music to Lagos and share it with everyone.”

Bucknor responded, “Absolutely! Thank you very much, Mr Ronaldo.”

Speaking after her performance, Bucknor explained that Global Melodies grew from her debut concert in 2012, following years of musical training and participation in different choirs.

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“Having gone through several trainings and having been a member of different choirs, I thought it was time for me to do my own concert,” she said.

Bucknor noted that many of the foreign-language pieces she performed were songs she learnt while studying music in 2004.

Asked what distinguished her artistry, she said, “I think what’s unique about me is me being me, because nobody can sound like me, and I don’t sound like anybody else.”

She further encouraged people with multiple talents to explore their abilities rather than restrict themselves to a single identity.

Looking ahead, Bucknor revealed plans to expand her creative work into theatre, with the ambition of eventually developing a stage production into an African opera.