Why I'm launching organ music studies in Nigeria – Lanre Delano

By Ayo Onikoyi

Classical music virtuoso Lanre Delano has spoken about his decades‑long effort to save liturgical organ music from extinction in Nigeria, explaining how strategic advocacy and infrastructure investment enabled the country’s first university organ studies programme.

An alumnus of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile‑Ife, Delano is partnering with his former university to launch a historic certificate and diploma programme in Organ Studies. The initiative marks a personal triumph, as Delano recalls the strong resistance he encountered from conservative institutions when he first proposed modern digital organs in Nigeria.

“By the time I stepped into this space, the organ was going into extinction. Churches were buying standard keyboards and calling them organs,” Delano remarked. He recounted a pivotal encounter where a church committee seeking a N400,000 keyboard questioned his sanity when he presented a N4 million digital organ proposal. “I had to educate them on the technical capabilities of the instrument. It took months, but they eventually saw the vision.”

Delano compared the shift from traditional pipe organs to modern digital organs to the difference between traveling by ship and flying by airplane. “A pipe organ takes years to build, but a high‑quality digital organ, played well, delivers the same majestic depth instantly,” he said.

The new OAU programme seeks to institutionalise this expertise. Delano says the Department of Music has set aside the ‘Lanre Delano Organ Studies Room’ to