Nkeiru Okoye
American composer and musician
Nkeiru Okoye (born July 18, 1972) is an American composer and musician. She has composed many works based on American history, including Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom, Invitation to a Die-In and "The Journey of Phillis Wheatley".
Biography
Nkeiru Okoye was born on July 18, 1972, and grew up in New York. Her mother is African American and her father was Nigerian, a member of the Igbo ethnic group. During her childhood, she spent time in both the United States and Nigeria. Okoye learned to play piano at age 8 and began writing music at age 13. Okoye went to the Preparatory Division of the Manhattan School of Music. When her parents separated, Okoye and her older sister lived with their mother on Long Island. She attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music for her undergraduate work, graduating in 1993. She then went on to Rutgers University to study with her mentor, Noel Da Costa.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 4, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q78172335. VIAF identifies the subject as 167130027. The Library of Congress control number is no2011005044. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nkeiru Okoye” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.