The life of Ignatius Sancho is easily as picaresque as that of Don Quixote, literature’s eccentric knight after whose faithful companion he was named. Born on a slave ship off the coast of Guinea in 1729, the infant Sancho arrived at the Spanish colony of New Grenada (now Colombia) where his mother died of illness and his father committed suicide rather than endure life as a slave.
At the age of two, Sancho was sent as a gift to three sisters in Greenwich, England, but when he was a young man he ran away and took refuge with the Duke of Montagu, who, impressed with Sancho’s alacrity, took an interest in his education. Sancho took to the world of drama, music, literature and art, becoming good friends with many of the leading cultural lights of the day.
His posthumously published letters include lengthy correspondences with the writer Laurence Sterne (author of Tristam Shandy) and his portrait was painted by Thomas Gainsborough. After a short-lived career as a Shakespearean actor, Sancho married Anne Osborne, a West Indian woman of African descent, and set himself up as a successful businessman in London. History records him as the first black person to vote in a British election and — after his death in 1780 — the first to receive an obituary in a British newspaper.
However, it is the musical legacy left by Sancho that marks him out as much more than a historical footnote. Despite his lack of formal training, Sancho was a formidable composer of Baroque music. Though much of his work vanished, his surviving canon of one set of songs and three sets of dances — 62 compositions in all — reveals a creative talent transcending the curiosity value of the inevitable epithet of “Africa’s only Baroque composer”.
An extremely rare occasion to hear the music of Sancho presents itself when Durban’s Baroque 2000 ensemble performs a selection of the composer’s minuets, cotillions and country dances as part of the programme on August 27. The performance is directed by internationally acclaimed Irish violinist Darragh Morgan, who also features as the concert’s soloist.
Equally at ease with Baroque, classical and avant garde, Morgan has performed with many of the world’s leading contemporary music groups, including Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta and Icebreaker. As a recording artist he has worked with, among others, The Corrs, Jamiroquai, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Travis and David Bowie. His own album Cusp is due for release.
Baroque 2000 perform a programme featuring Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto No 4; Geminiani’s Concerto Grosso No 1; JS Bach’s Ricercar and pieces from Ignatius Sancho’s minuets, cotillions and country dances at St Olav’s Church on St Thomas Road, Durban, on Sunday August 27 at 11.30am. Tickets are available at the door or at Computicket