Brief Composer Biographies






Joseph Boulogne
was the son of an African mother and a French Parliamentary councilor and was born in Basse Terre, Guadeloupe.  His family moved to Haiti where he is reputed to have had his first violin lessons from his father's plantation manager.  They moved to Paris in 1749 and it was there that the young man became an expert fencer, studying arms under Master of Arms La Boessiére for six years.
    From 1758 to 1768 he is believed to have studied violin with Leclair and composition under Gossec.  In 1769 Gossec appointed him to his first professional music post--first violinist of the Concerts des Amateurs.  He made his acclaimed debut as a soloist in 1772, playing his own op. 2 concertos.  In addition to these he composed sonatas, string quartets, seven Symphonies Concertantes, the ballet L'Amant Anonime and at least two operas: Ernestine and La fille-garçon.
    In 1773 he assumed Gossec's post as Music Director of the Concerts des Amateurs, where he played a vital part in commissioning Haydn's Paris Symphonies. In 1791 he left his life as a professional musician to become captain of the National Guard in Lille.
 
 
 


José Mauricio Nuñes-Garcia
was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a black Brazilian woman.  He was a founder of the Brotherhood of St. Cecilia and became a priest in 1792. He was widely acclaimed for his intellect, spirituality and musical artistry.  In 1798 he was appointed Mestre de Capela of the Rio de Janeiro Cathedral where he served as organist, choirmaster, music instructor and composer-in-residence.  In 1808 he attracted the attention of João IV, King of Portugal, who was so impressed by his talent and compositions that he appointed Nuñes-Garcia Mestre deCapelato his Brazilian royal chapel.   An active composer all his life, Nuñes-Garcis produced masses, offertories, operas, symphonic overtures, popular songs and a method for the pianoforte. Nuñes-Garcia  conducted the Brazilian première of Mozart's Requiem in 1819.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ignatius Sancho
was born into slavery on a ship traveling between Guinea and Cartagena, Columbia in the year 1729.  His mother and father died during the journey and the orphaned infant was given to three English sisters who took him to London.  Here he entered into the service of Lord Mantagu, who, seeing his keen intellectual potential, enabled him to acquire an education.  At his request, Ignatius was freed from Lord Montagu's service to become a poet, composer and prosperous merchant.  Proud of his heritage he published his music with the credit "by an African".  Sancho's anti-slavery writings (begun in 1767) were widely influential and inspired the early English abolitionist movement.  His letters were collected and published two years after his death, at London, in 1780.  This 1782 publication inspired the formation of The Abolition Society whose actions led to the abolition of the slave trade in England in 1807.
 
 
 
 


Teodora Gines
Gines, of African descent, was born into slavery. Both she and her sister, Michaela, showed remarkable musical gifts, despite a lack of formal musical training.  For this reason, around 1597, they were freed to enter the service of the Cathedral at Santiago de Cuba as musicians. Teodora played bandora (a plucked bass instrument) and bowed bass.  Her sister was a singer.  Together with a Spanish violinist and a Portuguese schawm player, they formed the nucleus of the Cathedral's orchestra.
    Gines is credited with being the mother of modern Cuban folkloric music.  Son de la Ma Teodora, as do many of her compositions, uses the characteristic elements of plucked bass and syncopated polyrhythms with constant shifts from two to three beats in a single bar.