Composers
Ignatius Sancho
1729 - 1780About
Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780) was a British composer, actor, and writer. Sancho was born in 1729 on a slave ship and spent the first two years of his life enslaved in Grenada. Early on in his life, he was brought to England where he worked as a servant in Greenwich and then for the Duke of Montagu. Sancho taught himself to read and went on to compose music and write poetry and plays. In 1773, Sancho and his wife set up a grocer's shop in Westminster, which became a meeting place for some of the most famous writers, artists, actors and politicians of the day. As a financially-independent householder, he became the first black person of African origin to vote in parliamentary elections in Britain. Sancho was an important figure in the British abolitionist movement. Subsequently published two years after his death, The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho is one of the earliest accounts of African slavery written in English by a former slave.
Related Information
Works by Ignatius Sancho
| Title | Collection | Voice Type | Range | Poet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anacreon Ode XIII | Songs Collection by an African (edited by William Bauer & Neal Richardson) | Voice | F4 - Bb5 | Anacreon |
| Friendship Source of Joy | Songs Collection by an African (edited by William Bauer & Neal Richardson) | Voice | D4 - G5 | Composer? |
| Kate of Aberdeen | Songs Collection by an African (edited by William Bauer & Neal Richardson) | Voice | E4 - B5 | John Cunningham |
| Soft Flowing Avon | Songs Collection by an African (edited by William Bauer & Neal Richardson) | Voice | F4 - A5 | David Garrick |
| Sweetest Bard | Songs Collection by an African (edited by William Bauer & Neal Richardson) | Voice | F4 - G5 | David Garrick |
| The Complaint | Songs Collection by an African (edited by William Bauer & Neal Richardson) | Voice | F4 - Ab5 | Shakespeare |