SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, A MUSICAL LIFE

Post date: Aug 31, 2011 8:30:51 AM

SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, A MUSICAL LIFE

New Book by Jeffrey Green

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) was one of Britain’s most popular and acclaimed composers. The illegitimate child of an African doctor, Coleridge-Taylor managed to escape his humble roots by studying composition at the Royal College of Music, where he won a scholarship in 1893. Though he composed mainly for piano and violin, his Song of Hiawatha was performed nationwide for choir and orchestra to great critical acclaim. He died from pneumonia at the age of thirty-seven. The much awaited new biography of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor by Network member Jeffrey Green is being published next month by Pickering & Chatto (ISBN978; hbk).

Jeff's study is more than a biography of an Anglo-African composer. Using a wide range of public and private records, this extensively-researched work becomes a social history based around an artist who lived at the height of British imperialism. This was an era marked by widespread racism and conservative attitudes, and yet Coleridge-Taylor became a distinguished member of British society. The first comprehensive study of Coleridge-Taylor’s life for almost a century, it reveals how class-ridden Britain could embrace even the most unlikely of cultural icons.

The chapter headings are: The Early Years, The Royal College of Music, The Promising Young Composer, The Wedding Feast, A Sentiment Prevalent Here, Intensifying the Effort, The International Star, A Stalwart Member of the Profession, A 'Definite Place for the Negro in the World's History', A Tale of Old Japan, Requiem and The Legacy.

See: www.pickeringchatto.com/monographs/samuel_coleridge_taylor_a_musical_life

See also: William J. Zick's blog about the book on http://africlassical.blogspot.com/2011/04/samuel-coleridge-taylor-musical-life-by.html. There are several blog postings by Zick on SC-T.