Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
English composer, conductor, and educator Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s (1875-1912) composition career began at age sixteen with the publication of his In thee, O Lord. While a composition and violin student at the Royal College of Music, he wrote his Symphony in A Minor. Coleridge-Taylor went on to compose more than 80 works. In addition to composing, he conducted the Handel Society of London and was the Professor of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and the Trinity College of Music.
Coleridge-Taylor’s musical career and activism had wide-reaching impact in Europe and the US. His compositions inspired the formation of the Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society, a group of 200 Black singers in Washington, D.C. During his 1904 visit to the US, Coleridge-Taylor conducted the singers and US Marine Band in a program of his own works. He later toured with the Choral Society in Toronto, St. Louis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Boston, New York, and Milwaukee. Coleridge-Taylor advocated strongly for Black rights and sought to help establish the dignity of people of color. He set poetry by P.L. Dunbar and wrote a number of works inspired by his African heritage.
Resources
Sources
Banfield, Stephen, revised by Jeremy Dibble and Anya Laurence. “Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel.” Grove Music Online. 2013.
Philips, Mike. “Samuel Coleridge Taylor.” in Black Europeans: A British Library Online Gallery.
Works Featured on Expanding the Music Theory Canon
Serenade from Fantasiestücke, Op. 5
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Page: Asymmetrical Meters
Ballade in D Minor, Op. 4
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Pages: Mediant, Augmented 6th
Valse de la Reine from Four Characteristic Waltzes, Op. 22
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Page: Modulation
Three Humoresques, Op. 31
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Page: Modal Mixture
Ballade in D Minor, Op. 4
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Page: Modal Mixture
African Dances, Op. 58
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Page: Augmented 6th