He was the most celebrated musician in France—a virtuoso violinist, acclaimed composer, and undefeated fencing champion who taught Marie Antoinette music and counted Mozart among his rivals. His symphonies filled Paris's grandest concert halls. The Queen herself attended his premieres. But when he applied to lead the Paris Opera, three singers sent a petition to the King declaring they would never submit to orders from a mulatto. That single word destroyed everything.

This is the story of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges—the son of a French plantation owner and an enslaved Guadeloupean woman who became the most accomplished man in 18th-century Europe, only to be systematically erased from history because of his race. He out-fenced the continent's greatest swordsmen. He out-composed his contemporaries. He led the first all-Black regiment in European military history during the French Revolution. Yet for two centuries, his name vanished from concert programs, history books, and the legacy of classical music itself.

Discover how one man's brilliance threatened an empire's racial order, why his own allies betrayed him, what his music reveals about genius suppressed, and how the classical music world is only now confronting the uncomfortable truth: they buried their Black Mozart because he was Black. A story about talent that couldn't be denied and a system determined to deny it anyway.

Content Warning: Discussion of slavery, racism, colonial violence, and historical erasure.

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