#This date was chosen for being the anniversary of the death of Zumbi dos Palmares a crucial pioneer of resistance to slavery

[everykatakuri]

[music-thestrongestformofmagic]

Greetings, human beings! Today, on November 20th, we celebrate in Brazil our Dia da Consciência Negra (Black Awareness Day). My country has deep problems with racism, especially since we were the last country to abolish slavery, with no efforts to actually empower this population. That horrible legacy still has a hold on us, & despite some advances we still have a long way to do afro-Brazilians justice. This is a day then to help us as a population think & acknowledge it. This date was chosen for being the anniversary of the death of Zumbi dos Palmares, a crucial pioneer of resistance to slavery.

This year, given I’ve become quite a classical music junkie, I’ve decided to, in celebration of this day, look up some black Brazilian classical composers & spend the day listening to them. I’ve actually learned a lot & love what I found! It’s important to share it with you, since we tend to see classical music as a white people thing & erase the historical importance of black figures. So here I hope to do my part to educate myself & you all a bit.

Left to right:

José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830) was one of the greatest exponents of Classicism in the Americas. He sang & played the harpsichord. Being a priest, most of his pieces are sacred works, although there are some secular ones, & his style had strong influences of composers such as Mozart & Haydn.

Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896) was a son of a conductor & a protegé of Brazil’s emperor, who offered him a royal scholarship to study in Italy, where he became the only successful non-European composer in the golden age of Opera. He was praised by Verdi, Liszt & the Italian emperor.

Emerico Lobo de Mesquita (1746-1805) was an organist & composer, known for his virtuosity & improvisation. All of his known work is sacred music, with influences from Renaissance, Barroque & Classicism. Unfortunately, a big chunk of it (500) was lost, only 85 remaining. He was still, however, one of the biggest composers from our Colonial era.

Did you guys look them up? Tell me what you think! And feliz #DiaDaConsciênciaNegra ^^

#blackhistory #classicalmusic #history #music #écoisadepreto

Original.