A centuries-old insurance document detailing the trafficking of enslaved Africans began with the words: “In the name of God, Amen.” For Dr Errol Francis, the artistic director and chief executive of the arts and heritage charity Culture&, the contradiction was striking: an invocation of God in a document that treated human beings as cargo. It gave him an unusual idea: what if the documents that once insured the trafficking of enslaved Africans could instead be used to create a requiem in their memory? The new work, Atlantic Requiem, by the Manchester-based composer David Önaç, will premiere on Sunday at LSO St Luke’s in London, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers.
Commissioned by Culture&, the project grew out of research into Lloyd’s of London, the historic insurance market whose members helped insure ships and enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. Sponsored by Lloyd’s, the 40-minute, five-movement work brings together Catholic liturgy, historic insurance documents and testimony concerning the killing of an enslaved African woman aboard a ship in 1790. Its musical language combines contemporary classical composition with jazz, gospel and other traditions that emerged on both sides of the Atlantic.
The performances, taking place during Black History Month, will be conducted by the Grammy award-winning conductor Malcolm J Merriweather. Religion was used to convert the indigenous people then, the indigenous people often took up religion as part of emancipation,” Francis, who was a member of the steering group overseeing research into Lloyd’s historical involvement in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans, said. For Önaç, who is of mixed heritage and hails from both sides of the Atlantic, the piece was an opportunity to explore longstanding questions about where he belongs.
The second movement draws on a 1791 grand jury testimony concerning the killing of an enslaved African woman aboard the brig Polly, commanded by James DeWolf. The testimony, preserved by the Newport Historical Society, records the account of John Cranston, a crew member who described a horrific incident during the ship’s voyage from Africa to the West Indies in 1791. According to Cranston, an enslaved woman suspected of having smallpox was bound to a chair, gagged and thrown overboard on the captain’s orders, amid fears she would infect others aboard the ship.
What is the emotional impact? What is the loss of culture? What is the blindness to value?” Lloyd’s has acknowledged its historical links to enslavement, and after the publication of the Underwriting Souls interactive archive, it announced its Inclusive Futures programme, aimed at supporting Black and ethnically diverse communities.
For some, this artistic project doesn’t go far enough. But Francis is careful to distinguish the requiem from important questions of financial redress. Önaç added that the requiem is not only a response to historical atrocities but a commentary on modern society.
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