In fact, the story of the first known published black composer – Vicente Lusitano – is only now being heard, alongside a revival of interest in his long-neglected choral music. More like this ...

Furthermore, the details of Lusitano’s peripatetic career align with a 1518 papal bull prohibiting Black priests’ employment within the Catholic Church. Particularly in its recursive moments ...

And yet Lusitano was the first Black composer to have his music published. I first saw his name during the summer of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, when flautist and composer Alice H Jones ...