By Sawney Freeman

Sawney Freeman’s music has only very recently been rediscovered. Born into slavery in Connecticut at around 1770, he escaped in 1790. Freeman was a devoted violin player and composer, and he is one of the earliest known published Black American composers, writing in the New England four-part instrumental-chorale idiom. His “New Death March” is likely written in reaction to Handel’s March from Saul, a perennial piece that made its way into many of these “instrumental tutor” publications of the time. Freeman’s first known publication was his Musicians Pocket Companion of 1801 (an existing copy has yet to be found). The works in this program were collected in the “Gurdon Trumbull Copybook” from 1817.