The plainsightSOUND project is here!

This project came about because it occured to me one day that, as we know the presence of Black people in the UK goes back hundreds of years, historical Black classical musicians must also have existed.

Early into this research, I discovered that if you type 'African composer', 'African classical musician' or any similar variations into Google, you'll be redirected to information about African American musicians. If you really want to find out about performers of Western classical music of African heritage who are not American (and there are LOADS), you will need to know their names. I realised that for the first time in years, I was going to have to go into a library. I was also going to have to email and meet with a load of strangers.

My own parents are Nigerian and although I was already aware of people from West Africa - including my father - coming to the UK to study throughout the 20th Century, I've found so many interesting stories about musicians that go much further back. This site has been set up as a way to share what I find and share it with as many people as possible.

Right now, I've got names of over 50 musicians that I'm researching and the list is growing weekly. Sometimes I find out information that makes a particular subject less relevant for this project, but I'm still amazed at how many I still have.

I've decided that to be included in this project, a composer must:

• be of Black African descent
• have created work in European classical music in Britain (performing or composing)
• have been musically active in Britain before 1952

If I'm being realistic, I'll probably be pretty lax about the final point because I've already found a few composers that I like who just miss this deadline.

In the meantime, I'm going to dedicate this project to the entire Ngwe fam because they're always reminding me to continue to create and discover new things.