BBC Radio 3 to shine light on 'forgotten' composers

One of the featured composers is French polymath Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges

BBC Radio 3 is to premiere three forgotten orchestral works by composers from diverse ethnic backgrounds as part of an ongoing push to expand the classical repertoire.

Works by Margaret Bonds, Ali Osman and Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges will be heard for the first time in a broadcast on 2 February.

The concert is the first result of a year-long collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which funded research into Black, Asian and ethnically diverse composers.

The seven researchers who were awarded funding last spring have been excavating pieces of music that have been rarely performed and, in some cases, never recorded.

Here are the composers whose work will be showcased.

Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)

A former child prodigy who won a scholarship to the Coleridge-Taylor Music School at the age of eight, Bonds forged a path as a composer in 1930s Chicago.

In 1934, she became the first black musician to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and had a close working relationship with poet and social activist Langston Hughes, composing a number of works using his words.

Her arrangement of the spiritual He's Got The Whole World In His Hands later became an international pop hit, recorded by Mahalia Jackson, Perry Como and Laurie London, among others.

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Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799)

Regarded as one of the most important musicians of pre-Revolutionary Paris, Saint-Georges is often described as the first classical composer of African ancestry.

His parents were a wealthy slave owner on a plantation in the West Indies and a slave. So little is known of his musical training that several myths have grown up around it.

A prolific composer as well an accomplished swordsman, he wrote string quartets, symphonies and concertos while leading one of Europe's best orchestras - Le Concert des Amateurs. Former US president John Adams once declared him "the most accomplished man in Europe".

Kikuko Kanai (1906-1986)

One of the first Japanese women to compose Western classical music, Kikuko Kanai was a restless and inventive musician whose career encompassed more than 150 works for orchestra, choir, and stage (including ballet and opera), as well as chamber music and solo piano pieces.

Combining classical training with her Okinawan musical heritage, she devoted herself to collecting Japanese folk songs, many of which formed the basis for her orchestral and choral works.

Much of her prolific output has never been recorded, but the Radio 3 project will allow works like Shrine Maiden Dance, Good Harvest Dance and Karate to be heard for the first time outside Japan.

Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943)

Dett was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1882, the descendant of escaped slaves who had fled to North.

A prodigious talent, he was lauded as a composer, choir leader, pianist, teacher, writer and poet, often drawing inspiration from African-American folk music.

From 1913 to 1931, he served as director of music at the Hampton Institute (the first black person to hold the role), where he developed the 80-voice Hampton Choir into an internationally-renowned musical force. In 1919, also he helped found the National Association of Negro Musicians.

Radio 3's concert will focus on some of his lesser-known solo piano works.

Ali Osman (1958-2017)

Ali Osman (centre) with members of Al Nour Wal Amal

The Sudanese musician started out playing drums and guitar, but later wrote orchestral, chamber and vocal pieces, many of which were performed in the Cairo Opera House, as well as publishing theses on traditional Sudanese music.

He was best-known for his work with Al Nour Wal Amal (The Light And Hope Orchestra), which consists entirely of visually impaired and blind women, and said helping the players learn their scores required an entirely new approach to music.

"What you see on stage are the women playing alone. I no longer conduct," he once said. "My work is completely within the rehearsal walls. If you are dedicated to your work during the rehearsals, you will have good results in the concert."

Julia Perry (1924-1979)

American-born Julia Perry studied at the Westminster Choir College and received conducting training at the prestigious Juilliard School.

Her early works were heavily influenced by spirituals, while the civil rights movement of the 1960s encouraged her to reference black American musical idioms like blues, jazz and rock 'n' roll more explicitly in her compositions.

After a stroke in 1971, she taught herself to write with her left hand so she could continue to compose, and eventually penned 12 symphonies, two concertos and three operas, although many have yet to be recorded.

Isaac Hirshow (1883-1956)

Russian-born cantor Isaac Hirshow was the University of Glasgow's first Bachelor of Music, whose public concerts "helped define Scottish-Jewish identity", according to Radio 3.

Trained in Russia and Warsaw, he emigrated to Scotland in 1922 with his family and became cantor at the Chevra Kadisha synagogue in the Gorbals.

His works often included new arrangements of Hebrew poetry and reflected his dual life in the East and West.

"Isaac Hirshow's own journey reminds us that migration is an integral and ongoing part of, not just the Jewish story, but also the human story," Dr Phil Alexander, who is researching his life, told the Jewish Chronicle. "So that has very contemporary resonances as well."

The music will be premiered on Radio 3's Afternoon Concert, performed by the BBC Philharmonic, with piano solos performed by Clare Hammond. Students from the Royal Northern College of Music will also play two rare string quartets by Saint-Georges.

The programme will be complemented by two podcasts hosted by Christienna Fryer, with a second concert scheduled for this autumn.

"BBC Radio 3 is all about expanding the classical canon through new commissions and unearthing those from the past that might forever be lost without a platform for audiences to discover them," the station's controller Alan Davey said.

"We're grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for supporting us and enabling us to take steps to ensure that unfairly forgotten figures are welcomed again into the Western classical canon for future generations."