Feature 23 July 2026

Loosening canons

The presence of Black artists within classical music is neither new nor peripheral. It is longstanding, influential and woven into the fabric of the form itself

Black-and-white portrait of Ignatius Sancho, FRSA, a distinguished figure among black classical musicians, seated in a carved wooden chair and looking directly at the camera with a neutral expression.

Pawlet Brookes, MBE, FRSA

reading time: Five minutes

Arts and culture Arts and society Diversity and inclusion

Summary

From Ignatius Sancho and Joseph Antonio Emidy to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Joseph Bologne, Philip Herbert and Alison Buchanan, Pawlet Brookes, FRSA, MBE challenges the assumption that Black presence in classical music is recent or peripheral, tracing a lineage of composers, performers and cultural leaders whose contributions shaped the form over centuries. Recovering these histories is not symbolic inclusion, but a necessary rethinking of cultural memory, excellence and belonging.

^{Main image: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor}

Classical music is often imagined as distant from Black cultural experience, an elite European tradition into which Black artists have only recently entered. Yet this narrative is deeply misleading. For centuries, composers, musicians and performers of African and African Caribbean heritage have contributed to, expanded and challenged classical traditions across Britain and Europe. They were not merely participants within the canon, but innovators who pushed artistic boundaries, crossed cultural worlds and reimagined what classical music could sound and feel like.

What is perhaps most striking is not that Black artists existed within classical music history, but that so many were celebrated in their own time before later being pushed to the margins of cultural memory. Reclaiming these histories is therefore not simply about representation. It is about recognising that artistic excellence, experimentation and intellectual rigour have always been part of Black creative heritage.

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Reshaping the present

By the 18th century, Britain was already home to thousands of people of African descent, both free and enslaved, and Black musicians were actively shaping cultural life within this landscape. Ignatius Sancho (c.1729–1780), remembered today primarily as a writer and abolitionist, was also the first known Black Briton to have music formally published. His collections of dances and songs reveal not an outsider looking into British culture, but an artist fully engaged in shaping it.

Joseph Antonio Emidy (c.1775–1835) similarly unsettles assumptions about who classical music belonged to. Born in Guinea, enslaved as a child and later forcibly recruited into the British Navy, Emidy eventually settled in Cornwall, where he became a celebrated violinist, composer and leader of the Truro Philharmonic Orchestra. His life speaks not only to extraordinary resilience, but to the long-standing relationship between Black artistry and classical innovation in Britain.

Classical music has always been more culturally interconnected, Diasporic and expansive than institutions have often allowed us to believe.

This spirit of boundary-crossing continued into the 20th century through Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912), whose success challenged both racial and cultural expectations of the period. His celebrated composition Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast toured internationally, and his influence extended well beyond the artistic. Coleridge’s wider presence across Black intellectual and political circles connected movements across the Atlantic. He was, for example, the youngest delegate at the 1900 Pan-African Conference in London. Nonetheless, his story also exposed the inequalities embedded within the cultural industries. Despite the extraordinary success of his work, he died in poverty at the age of just 37, having signed away the rights to compositions that generated substantial profits for others.

A painted portrait of a man wearing a red and gold coat with a dark blue outer jacket, set against a brown background. Reminiscent of celebrated black classical musicians such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the man faces slightly to the right, with a calm expression. — **Ignatius Sancho**

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The Black Classics Symposium and Concert, which will take place on 1 October 2026 in Leicester.

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Likewise, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745–1799) – virtuoso violinist, conductor and composer – disrupted European assumptions about race, artistry and refinement long before such conversations entered contemporary discourse.

Frequently reduced to the label ‘Black Mozart’, Saint-Georges was something far more significant: a pioneering artist whose work stood powerfully in its own right. His acclaim across France and England reminds us that Black excellence within classical music has never been an anomaly.

These figures matter not simply because they existed, but because they reveal a deeper truth: classical music has always been more culturally interconnected, Diasporic and expansive than institutions have often allowed us to believe. The notion that Black communities are somehow new to classical traditions ignores centuries of contribution, innovation and authorship.

Reshaping the present

That history continues to resonate in contemporary practice. Today’s Black composers, musicians and cultural leaders are not entering unfamiliar territory; they are building upon legacies that stretch back generations while simultaneously reshaping the future of the form.

Composer Philip Herbert’s work demonstrates how classical music can remain socially urgent while expanding its own artistic language. His composition Elegy, written in response to the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, gained renewed resonance following the murder of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Herbert’s music pushes beyond narrow definitions of orchestral composition, incorporating steelpan and tap percussion within classical forms – a reminder that Black musical traditions have always carried both innovation and complexity.

A man in a suit plays a grand piano in an art gallery, with sheet music—perhaps a piece by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor—in front of him and colourful artwork displayed on the walls behind. — **Philip Herbert**

Similarly, soprano and arts leader Alison Buchanan has become an important force within British opera. As Artistic Director of Pegasus Opera Company, and the only Black woman leading a British opera company, her work challenges long-standing assumptions about leadership, visibility and artistic authority within the sector. Her contribution extends beyond performance; it is about creating space for future generations of artists to see themselves reflected within opera and classical music, not as exceptions, but as part of its evolving centre.

A historical portrait of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, FRSA—a renowned Black classical musician—depicts him in an orange coat holding a sword, with white hair and a ruffled shirt, set against a muted background. — **Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges**

A woman smiles whilst standing in front of a colourful painting of a figure in a red dress. She wears a vibrant pink and green patterned jacket and dark top, evoking the creative flair seen in portraits of celebrated black classical musicians like Ignatius Sancho, FRSA. The background is light purple. — **Alison Buchanan**

An open room

To reimagine tomorrow is to understand that culture is never fixed. The canon is not a closed room; it is a living conversation shaped by who is invited in, who is remembered and whose stories are allowed to endure. Recovering Black classical histories is therefore not an exercise in nostalgia, but an act of cultural responsibility. It challenges inherited assumptions about excellence, belonging and authorship, while opening the door for future generations to imagine themselves differently within these spaces.

And yet, despite important progress, structural inequalities remain deeply embedded within classical music. Black musicians continue to be underrepresented within orchestras, particularly at senior and leadership levels.

Too often, diversity is treated as an initiative rather than a deeper reconsideration of cultural value itself. Reimagining tomorrow requires more than symbolic inclusion. It demands honesty about the past and imagination about the future. It asks us to recognise that Black contributions to classical music are not peripheral additions to an established tradition, but part of the tradition itself. Classical excellence has always existed within Black creative heritage. The challenge now is not discovery, but recognition.