Born: February 21 1938, Liberia
Died: March 29 2000
Country most active: Liberia
Also known as: NA
Agnes Nebo von Ballmoos was a Liberian music professor, Liberian folk music scholar, conductor, composer, and lawyer. She helped preserve Liberian folk music by collecting and transcribing music from diverse cultural traditions around the country and composing original arrangements of traditional songs. She was a pioneer in the transcription of Liberian folk songs into written form and taught at the University of Liberia for nearly 30 years. Under her leadership, the university choir gave concerts at venues around the world, performing a varied repertoire that included classical pieces, spirituals, and traditional Liberian music.
As a child, von Ballmoos attended the Bible Industrial Academy in Grand Bassa County and Suehn Mission School in Bomi County. She received a scholarship for academic excellence to complete her high school studies at Nannie Helen Burroughs School in Washington, D.C. She earned an undergraduate degree in piano performance in 1959 at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. In 1975, she completed a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from Indiana University, which she attended on a Fulbright fellowship. Her thesis focused on the social role of folk songs in Liberia.
From 1961 to 1990, von Ballmoos taught music at the University of Liberia, where she was a founding member of the music program and conducted the university choir. Von Ballmoos introduced traditional Liberian music into the choir’s repertoire for the first time. “Our research began in 1966 with the arrangement of seven songs performed by the University of Liberia choir–the very first time in our history of indigenous songs being performed by our highest institution. The idea thrilled the entire community and we received encouraging letters of congratulations and compliments,” she wrote.
Under her direction, the choir gained international attention for its performances, which included a combination of European classical music, African-American spirituals and traditional Liberian songs. The group gave concerts around the world, including a 1974 performance at an international choral festival at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, where it was the only group representing an African country.
In 1989, von Ballmoos completed a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Liberia and became a lawyer at a Monrovia law firm.She moved to London the following year to escape the First Liberian Civil War. She worked there as a legal consultant and died in London in 2000.
Founded in 2009, the University of Liberia Alumni Chorus performs an annual concert in the United States to celebrate von Ballmoos’s legacy and raise money for the university’s music department. Choir alumni remember von Ballmoos as a leader who expected excellence and who “taught us everything … she taught us to appreciate music, she taught us to appreciate African culture, how to dress, how wrap our hair, how to conduct ourselves in public.” Choir alumni credit the discipline and commitment that she instilled with helping them survive during the civil war.