Founded seven years ago by Artistic and Executive Director – and orchestral double bassist – Chi-chi Nwanoku, London’s Chineke! Orchestra is Europe’s first majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. Comprised of musicians drawn from across the globe, its rise to national, and now international prominence is one of classical music’s most heartening success stories. They made a notable debut at the BBC Proms in 2017, won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s inaugural Gamechanger Award in 2019, and were a career launchpad for cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason.

Chineke!’s latest coup is a Decca recording deal that will see them collaborate on a new label (Chineke! Records) aimed at rediscovering, reassessing and promoting the music of lost, unheard or neglected voices, starting with this generous double album of music by the British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912).

Coleridge-Taylor was born in London to a white English woman and a doctor from Sierra Leone. Brought up by his mother’s family in Croydon, his musical talent was spotted early, and he entered the Royal College of Music aged 15 on the same day as Ralph Vaughan Williams. Unlike his...