Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Caribbean-French violinist, composer, and conductor (d. 1799)
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (December 25, 1745 – June 10, 1799), was a Guadeloupean Creole classical composer, virtuoso violinist, a conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris, and a renowned champion fencer. Born in the then French colony of Guadeloupe, he was the son of Georges de Bologne Saint-Georges, a wealthy married planter, and Anne, dite (called) Nanon, an African slave woman of his wife.His father took him as a seven-year-old to France, where he was educated. Following the 1789 outbreak of the French Revolution, the younger Saint-Georges served as a colonel of the Légion St.-Georges (established in 1792), the first all-black regiment in Europe, fighting on the side of the Republic. Today the Chevalier de Saint-Georges is best remembered as the first-known classical composer of African ancestry. He composed numerous string quartets and other instrumental pieces, violin concertos as well as operas. He knew many composers, including Salieri, Gossec, Gretry, Gluck and Mozart.