Metamorphosis, a musical presentation on the famed SR Orchestra conducted by yourself will be holding, June 24, at the Muson Centre under the title, ''Night of total excellence", what is metamorphosis all about? Metamorphosis is a musical travelogue. A musical journey through time. We intend to look at what has been happening over the years to now and project into the future. We want to achieve this experiment by trying to play music from different periods, arranged in a way that it will be acceptable in today's world.

We do know that the music of yesteryears might not be acceptable to the people of this generation but, what we have done is to arrange all musical styles of yesteryears in way that they would be acceptable in today's audience. That is what metamorphosis is all about. For people who are under 40 years of age, this musical journey should serve as a means of educating them. Perhaps this will afford them the opportunity to listen to such music that remain part of the mainstream of Nigerian music.

What actually in­spired your decision to embark on this musical odyssey?
The challenge has always been there. I see it as a challenge, to be able to do music that will stretch to ages and therefore present it in a way that it will be acceptable to today's audience. It is all about how to package our music to out live time and ages. It's unfortunate that in this country, people are not interested in looking backwards. That is why we have a major problem here, because we do not have a history. We live today to forget our tomorrow. We don't allow our yesterday to become a platform for our today and an inspiration for tomorrow.

This is one of the things that have bothered me so much. We always engage ourselves in looking at those areas in which we have made terrible mistakes and errors in judgment after allowing greed and personal considerations to ruin our senses of achievements in other areas of life. That is what the challenges are all about; this musical odyssey is going to be all embracing. I for one, I am very proud of our past.

We passed through a period when it was a very vibrant and lively musical scene in Nigeria such that can not be compared with any in the whole of African countries. It's unfortunate that these days we only have musicians who no longer want to be original in their creative endeavour. People who prefer to live by copying the lifestyle of the western world.

Having lived all your life as a music maestro, do you appear to be comfortable with the lifestyle of Nigerian musicians, both the old and the young?

Don't restrict yourself to musicians of the past years. Look at the musicians of today. Are they better off? It's the same thing. Nigerian musicians do not have the opportunity to live like their counterparts in the western world whom they are copying every now and then. The reason is simple. Here is a country where we do not have any kind of respect for intellectual property. Musicians in the developed world live a flamboyant life compared with their counterparts in Africa. They earn their living through the use of their intellec­tual works, but in Nigeria here, things like that are not encouraged.

The point you raised concerning how intellectual properties are not properly protected in this country, apart from the recent move by the Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC) to get rid of piracy through the launching or what they call STRAP. In your own view, what do you think need be done to curb the menace of piracy in Nigeria ?
Piracy is one aspect of the abuse of intellectual property in Nigeria . And that is the commercial aspect of it. But there are other abuses of intellectual property which requires the attention of the commission.