Noel DaCosta was born in Lagos, Nigeria
in 1929; his Jamaican parents were Salvation Army missionaries, who encouraged their children to study music. He went to Jamaica
as a child, and received his early education there. At age 11 he was taken to New York, where he continued his studies. In
1952 he obtained his B.A. in Music from Queen’s College, New York City. At Columbia University, where he studied with
Otto Luening and Jack Beeson, he obtained his M.A. in theory and composition in 1956. While still studying at Columbia he
received a Seidl Fellowship in Music Composition , and later on a Fulbright Scholarship he studied with Luigi Dallapiccola
in Florence, Italy.
He taught at Hampton University and City
University, New York, before going in 1970 to Rutgers University, where he taught until his retirement in 2001. He was Associate
Professor of Music at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers.
Much of DaCosta’s work reflects
his interests in African, West Indian and Afro-American folk traditions. His works include ‘Two Pieces for Unaccompanied
Cello’, ‘Blue Mix’, ‘Silver Blue’, ‘Three Short pieces for Alto Flute’, ‘The
Singing Tortoise’, ‘Two Songs for Julie-Ju’, ‘Five Verses with Vamps’, ‘Round about the
Mountain from Spiritual Set (1977)’ and ‘Triofantasia for Violin, Viola and Cello’. His work ‘Ukom
Memory Songs’ is described as ‘a remarkable blend of percussion and organ, featuring African rhythms and melodies.’
Besides his work as a composer, he was
an accomplished violinist and choral conductor. He was a founding member of the Society of Black Composers which promotes the performance of music by African American composers.
Noel DaCosta died in New York on June
8, 2002, at the age of 72.
