Nathaniel Dett was a Canadian-born composer who was descended from slaves and dedicated himself to promoting African American music, merging spirituals with western classical styles in his own works. Now, almost 80 years after his death, the BBC Philharmonic will give the world premiere of a newly discovered orchestral composition, described as “an absolute throwback to music of west African slaves”.
The manuscript was unearthed in a US archive by Dwight Pile-Gray, a British conductor and academic, who told the Guardian of the excitement of finding music by “one of the greatest classical composers of African descent”.
