Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Network
July 2023 Update
The Ballade in A Minor was performed in Prom 5 on 17 July and the Violin Concerto in G Minor in Prom 7 on 19 July.
The play Recognition staged in the Talawa Theatre at Fairfield Halls was a powerfully acted parallel story about a modern day black music student struggling to produce a composition, at a college where the curriculum was dominated by concentrating on the famous white composers, and Coleridge-Taylor’s life. It put too much emphasis on the few known incidents of his experience of racism, and the low amount of money paid by Novello for the music to Hiawatha. Such payments were the standard procedure of the day affecting all composers. Which is why they used his death to get the Performing Rights Society formed to improve their income. The way the visits to America were portrayed were banal, with actors shouting Coleridge-Taylor and Hiawatha. There was not enough emphasis on his popularity all over Britain. Audiences may have been perplexed by him conducting after he collapsed on West Croydon Station, not making it clear that he was doing so in his delirium. The play could be improved with a bit of re-writing. The script has been published by Faber & Faber.
The exhibition at Holy Innocents Church on Coleridge-Taylor, the Windrush and the NHS was superficial and amateurish. There were not enough panels with photos about Coleridge-Taylor. The best part of the exhibition was the panels about activists in the Barbadian Overseas Nurses Association and its activists in Croydon. This criticism is not directed at the Church, which had very little to do with the actual production.
On Saturday 2 October the Aldworth Park Orchestra will play a concert in the Great Hall at Reading University which will include Florence Price's Colonial Dream and Coleridge's Bamboula.
June 2023 Update
Thursday 22 June. 6-8pm. Launch Of The Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Inspired Exhibition
then Saturday afternoons from 24 June to 22nd July, 1pm-5pm and Sunday afternoon 2nd July.
‘The exhibition is in honour of the social activist contribution of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor who was a resident of Croydon. He married in Holy Trinity Church, Selhurst and when that church closed, Holy Innocents inherited many of its treasures, and became the "adoptive parent" of Samuel C-T, a fact of which they are proud.’
Holy Innocents Church, 132A Selhurst Road.
May 2023 Update
My talk on Samuel-Coleridge Taylor’s setting of poems to music during the Norbury Literary Festival was well received. Members of a South Norwood based SC-T project attended. SC-T’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast and Symphonic Variations on an African Air, were voted into the to Classic FM’s 100 Great British Classics. There are two new CDs of his piano and choral music:
· Choral Music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Top of Form
·Bottom of Form
·London Choral Sinfonia. Orchid Classics. 16 June.
· Luke Welch Piano music https://lukewelch.ca/2023/05/05/new-samuel-coleridge-taylor-piano-works-album-officially-released/
Randall Goosby concerts:
13 October with pianist Zhu Wang — with whom he collaborated for his debut album, “Roots,” on Decca Classics. The program will include Coleridge-Taylor, Dvořák, Still, Price, and Strauss.
14 January. “Intersections - Black Music and Words,” will explore the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, and include a work by Previn. The concert will be performed with Wang on piano and cellist Eddie Pogossian, and involve original poems inspired by folk songs and spirituals, to be narrated by violist Jameel Martin.
https://theviolinchannel.com/londons-southbank-center-announces-artists-in-residence/
The play Recognition features Coleridge-Taylor’s compositions, as well as original music by artist Cassie Kinoshi. Recognition is co-created by playwright and actress Amanda Wilkin and Ugandan-British choreographer and director Rachael Nanyonjo.
https://theatreweekly.com/full-cast-and-musicians-announced-for-talawas-new-production-recognition/
Prom 61. Chineke! Orchestra
Haydn, Beethoven, Coleridge-Taylor, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and Valerie Colman’s 2020 tribute to health workers, Seven O’Clock Shout.
Solemn Prelude
Composed for the 1899 Worcester festival, Solemn prelude was lost to history for over 120 years. In 2021 it was found by an archivist and revived by the Philharmonia Orchestra in a Worcester Festival concert in the Cathedral. Since then it has been performed across the globe, by ensembles such as the Hallé Orchestra, and the Chicago Dallas Symphony Orchestras. The Wheaton Municipal Band in Illinois will include in a concert on 15 June the world premiere of an arrangement of Solemn Prelude, by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. The Band was founded in
https://3choirs.org/news/wheaton-municipal-band-coleridge-taylors-solemn-prelude
Jeffrey Green’s Coleridge-Taylor. A Centenary Celebration (History & Social Action Publications).
Re-printed October 2019
£4 p&p from sean.creighton1947@btinternet.com
Black Classical Music News
The Sounds of Croydon: From Samuel Coleridge-Taylor to Stormzy Online Exhibition
www.pastfutures.co.uk/soundsofcroydon
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Jessie Sarah Fleetwood Walmisley.
Virtual Coleridge-Taylor with Chineke! & Sphinx Orchestras
www.oboeinsight.com/2020/06/04/samuel-coleridge-taylor-sphinx-chineke
Hiawatha in Australia
https://theatreheritage.org.au/on-stage-magazine/general-articles/item/637-the-show-went-on-hiawatha
Soweto Kinch, SC-T &
the 1919 Race Riots
https://www.ft.com/content/cffbe178-fc92-11e9-a354-36acbbb0d9b6
Newsletter 54 - February 2019
(To see copy click on Newsletters on left hand menu)
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and the civil rights movement
Croydon Citizen article 23 March
https://thecroydoncitizen.com/history/samuel-coleridge-taylor-civil-rights-movement
Details of this book are in Newsletter 48
Croydon's Music Scene in SC-T's time:
http://thecroydoncitizen.com/culture/samuel-coleridge-taylor-croydon-music-scene
RECORDINGS
Song of Hiawatha Overture
New Chandos Release
Tamsin Little Recording of the Violin Concerto
Released in November by Chandos (No. 10879) the CD British Works for Violin and Orchestra is of violinist Tamsin Little playing SC-T’s Violin Concerto in G Minor, along with Delius’s Suite for violin and orchestra and Haydn Wood’s Violin Concerto in A Minor. She is accompanied by the BBC Philharmonic.
The Undiscovered Piano Works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, recorded for the first time by Waka Hasegawa,CD is being issued 30 July. Metropolis Recordings. Catalogue Number - MR1301/UPC – 812864019346. The CD costs £7.99 + p&p.
'It is a lovely disc, and I have listened to it several times already. It is entertaining, reflective, tuneful and exciting stuff; the intelligence and commitment of composer and executant shine through every track. Don't hesitate! ' - Stephen Harrow, Chair, 2012 Croydon SC-T Festival.
Rights Society 19 June 2012
CENTENARY PLAQUE UNVEILED
Image unveiled at Performing
Sunday 30 December 2012
Plaque unveiled on Aldwick,
St Leonards Road, Waddon, Croydon
by the
Samuel Coleridge -Taylor Festival,
in association with
Surrey Opera,
the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Network
and the Nubian Jak Community Trust
See report on http://insidecroydon.com/2013/01/02/conductor-alwyn-unveils-blue-plaque-to-croydon-composer
More pictures can be seen at: http://imgbox.com/g/MAORPsXvcJ
THE 2012 CROYDON FESTIVAL
2012 saw the 100th Anniversary of the death of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Britain's Black composer, most famous for his work Hiawatha.
A year long Festival was held in Croydon - see Croydon Festival programme by clicking on left hand side column. Events elsewhere are listed under the Events page.
Highlights included the world premiere of Coleridge-Taylor's opera Thelma by Surrey Opera.
The Croydon Festival's artistic director was Jonathan Butcher of Surrey Opera.
SINCE 2012
Since 2012 the Network has continued to produce occasional newsletters of events, recordings, video clips, and new material on the life and works of SC-T. These are posted on this website. As a leading member of Edwardian Black Britain, SC-T has continued to be promoted through the British Black History Network. Aspects of his life composer’s life have been included in Sean Creighton's mini-book about his friend John Archer who was elected as Battersea’s Mayor, the first Black Mayor in London in 1913 -14. see https://sites.google.com/site/historysocialaction.
WHAT IS THE NETWORK?
The network was established:
1. For people involved in researching Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's life, playing his music, organising events, commemorating his achievements, and wanting to see a major commemoration of his life on the 100th Anniversary of his death in 2012.
2. To provide a method of communication for sharing information relating to the activities under 1, and to help encourage partnership working between different people involved in 1.
3. To encourage the development of events and media coverage across the country in 2012.
Supporters include:
Sean Creighton, Agenda Services and History & Social Action Publications.
Jeffrey Green, author of SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, A MUSICAL LIFE (Pickering & Chatto, June 2011)
Fred Scott, a Croydon based piano teacher and Director of Soundpractice Music Ltd. www.soundpractice.com
If you wish to join the Network please use the contact email below.
Fred and Sean were members of the Croydon Festival Committee.
The Network can be contacted at sean.creighton1947@btinternet.com.