London Symphonia is celebrating Black History Month with a concert that spotlights the life and music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Celebrated in his time, welcomed to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt, his music remained forgotten for decades.
Actor, playwright and poet Roy Lewis helps to flesh out the man and his times in The Life and Troubled Times of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
“2025 is the 150th anniversary of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s birth. We’re excited to present The Life and Troubled Times of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a concert experience that is part theatrical, part musical rediscovery. We hope that people from across the community will join us as we rediscover this most unjustly neglected composer,” said Andrew Chung, Artistic Producer, London Symphonia in a statement.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Composer, conductor and political activist Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born in 1875. His mother was English, and his father, who he never knew, was a Sierra Leonean doctor. Samuel called himself an Anglo-African.
He began formal study of the violin at the age of 15, and entered the Royal College of Music. He’d later switch violin for composition. He wrote a number of chamber works during his time there, and twice one the Lesley Alexander composition award.
Compositions like African Suite and African Romances notably incorporate Black traditional music into classical music forms. In African Romances (1896), he sets the words of African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar to music, and the duo gave live performances of the piece.
The success of his piece Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast led to invitations to conduct the work in concert across the Atlantic, and Coleridge-Taylor would make three trips to the US to perform with the all-Black Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society in 1904, 1906, and 1910. Remarkably, he was invite to visit the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt during one of his trips to America.
Although Coleridge-Taylor was considered a genius of 20th century music during his time, he was unable to make a living as a composer. Samuel worked as a professor of composition at the Trinity College of Music in London, as well as the conductor of the Handel Society, the Rochester Choral Society, and numerous smaller orchestras, until his death in 1912 at the age of 37. Overwork has been suspected of contributing to his early death of pneumonia.
While his family received some public and royal support after his passing, they did not reap the benefit of royalties from Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, his most popular work.
Largely forgotten in the decades following his death, his compositions have been rediscovered and recorded by a new generation of artists in recent years.
“Coleridge-Taylor’s music is truly groundbreaking. Sitting at the crossroads of a tumultuous Europe in the prelude to World War I, Coleridge-Taylor creates his own path, looking to the musical giants of the past and connecting with his father’s African heritage and the sounds and rhythms of African-American music,” says Chung.
The Concert Performance
Along with Coleridge-Taylor’s music, the London Symphonia Chamber will perform works by Florence Price, Franz Schubert, Antonín Dvořák, and Kris Bowers (of Bridgerton fame).
- Coleridge-Taylor, Nonet
- Coleridge-Taylor, Deep River from 24 Negro Melodies
- Kris Bowers, The Last Whistledown from Bridgerton
- Florence Price, Adoration
- Dvořák, Movements from Piano Quartet No. 2
- Schubert, Movements from Octet
Through letters and diary entries, Roy Lewis tells the story of Coleridge-Taylor’s life through a series of vignettes. Lewis, who created the text, is a Founding Member of the Obsidian Theatre Company, and a 16-season veteran of the Stratford Festival Company acting company.
Tickets are available to purchase for the in-person performance, or the concert can be experienced virtually through high quality 4K HDR Video On Demand productions. The On Demand option includes 21 days of unlimited access.
- Find out more [HERE].
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