London Symphonia is celebrating Black Historical past Month with a live performance that spotlights the life and music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Celebrated in his time, welcomed to the White Home by President Theodore Roosevelt, his music remained forgotten for many years.
Actor, playwright and poet Roy Lewis helps to flesh out the person and his instances in The Life and Troubled Occasions of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
“2025 is the a hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s beginning. We’re excited to current The Life and Troubled Occasions of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a live performance expertise that’s half theatrical, half musical rediscovery. We hope that individuals from throughout the group will be a part of us as we rediscover this most unjustly uncared for composer,” mentioned Andrew Chung, Creative Producer, London Symphonia in an announcement.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Composer, conductor and political activist Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born in 1875. His mom was English, and his father, who he by no means knew, was a Sierra Leonean physician. Samuel known as himself an Anglo-African.
He started formal examine of the violin on the age of 15, and entered the Royal School of Music. He’d later change violin for composition. He wrote quite a lot of chamber works throughout his time there, and twice one the Lesley Alexander composition award.
Compositions like African Suite and African Romances notably incorporate Black conventional music into classical music varieties. In African Romances (1896), he units the phrases of African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar to music, and the duo gave stay performances of the piece.
The success of his piece Hiawatha’s Marriage ceremony Feast led to invites to conduct the work in live performance throughout the Atlantic, and Coleridge-Taylor would make three journeys to the US to carry out with the all-Black Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society in 1904, 1906, and 1910. Remarkably, he was invite to go to the White Home by President Theodore Roosevelt throughout one among his journeys to America.
Though Coleridge-Taylor was thought-about a genius of twentieth century music throughout his time, he was unable to make a dwelling as a composer. Samuel labored as a professor of composition on the Trinity School of Music in London, in addition to the conductor of the Handel Society, the Rochester Choral Society, and quite a few smaller orchestras, till his demise in 1912 on the age of 37. Overwork has been suspected of contributing to his early demise of pneumonia.
Whereas his household obtained some public and royal help after his passing, they didn’t reap the good thing about royalties from Hiawatha’s Marriage ceremony Feast, his hottest work.
Largely forgotten within the a long time following his demise, his compositions have been rediscovered and recorded by a brand new technology of artists lately.
“Coleridge-Taylor’s music is actually groundbreaking. Sitting on the crossroads of a tumultuous Europe within the prelude to World Struggle I, Coleridge-Taylor creates his personal path, seeking to the musical giants of the previous and connecting together with his father’s African heritage and the sounds and rhythms of African-American music,” says Chung.
The Live performance Efficiency
Together with Coleridge-Taylor’s music, the London Symphonia Chamber will carry out works by Florence Worth, Franz Schubert, Antonín Dvořák, and Kris Bowers (of Bridgerton fame).
- Coleridge-Taylor, Nonet
- Coleridge-Taylor, Deep River from 24 Negro Melodies
- Kris Bowers, The Final Whistledown from Bridgerton
- Florence Worth, Adoration
- Dvořák, Actions from Piano Quartet No. 2
- Schubert, Actions from Octet
By means of letters and diary entries, Roy Lewis tells the story of Coleridge-Taylor’s life by means of a collection of vignettes. Lewis, who created the textual content, is a Founding Member of the Obsidian Theatre Firm, and a 16-season veteran of the Stratford Pageant Firm appearing firm.
Tickets can be found to buy for the in-person efficiency, or the live performance could be skilled nearly by means of top quality 4K HDR Video On Demand productions. The On Demand choice contains 21 days of limitless entry.
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.
