Musical Moments of Motherhood combines the analysis of music performance with the cultural contexts of African women as mothers. Ruth S. Opara demonstrates how women use music to create functional spaces for negotiating maternal roles that extend beyond biological reproduction to encompass public mothering. The book examines the lived experiences and musical practices of Igbo mothers from southeastern Nigeria and North America, as well as of Igbo girls learning the art of motherhood through music performance. Built on an ethnography grounded in historical context, the analysis considers songs, dance, instrumentation, costumes, dramatization, rituals, and social functions.

About the Author

Ruth S. Opara is Assistant Professor of Music at Columbia University. Her research focuses on African and African diasporic music and the production of knowledge.

Reviews

“In Musical Moments of Motherhood, ethnomusicologist Ruth Opara draws on historical analysis, fieldwork, and her own experiences as an Igbo woman to provide an insightful and engaging examination of the multifaceted ways Igbo women use music to do the important work of mothering kin, community, and nation in Nigeria and its diaspora.”—Maureen Mahon, author of Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll

“Opara offers a fluid narrative that productively interfaces musical events with moments of motherhood, drawing on insights from key agents within and beyond the ethnographic site as well as from a diverse body of literature.”—Olabode Omojola, author of Yorùbá Music in the Twentieth Century: Identity, Agency, and Performance Practice

“Opara covers very important issues, presenting a group of people that carry the burden of community cohesion and cultural identity, and providing a case study from Africa that can be replicated globally. This work is hugely significant, necessary, and long overdue.”—Jean Ngoya Kidula, author of Music in Kenyan Christianity: Logooli Religious Song

Awards

American Musicological Society Spring 2026 Subvention Award, American Musicological Society