Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Location Change: 5 PM, March 17, Boston Screening of SCT in America now at Boston University's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Archive.

[Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works
List and a Bibliography by Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma,
www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com. We are collaborating with
the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation of the U.K.,
www.SCTF.org.uk]

The Longfellow Chorus Portland, Maine

March 12, 2014



"Mr. Hayes has an unusually good voice. The natural quality
is beautiful. It is a luscious 
yet manly voice. Mr. Hayes sings
freely and with taste, though in his youthful 
enthusiasm he
occasionally, last evening, forced his upper tone. With
patience and 
further study he should go far."
   
—Boston Herald music critic Philip Hale, reviewing the debut
recital of Roland Hayes 
(1887–1977) at Jordan Hall, New
England Conservatory,
November 19, 1912, as quoted 
in The Crisis, Vol. 5, No. 3, January 1913.

Boston has a remarkable, hidden history where it concerns
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, so much so, a Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor walking tour of Boston would make a
great, historic way for a musically-minded tourist to spend
the day:


Boston Harbor Waterfront, near the present day
New England Aquari
um, where, in
Nov
ember 1904, as a transatlantic passenger
arriving from Liverpool, England, Coleridge-Taylor
first
set foot in America.

Symphony Hall, where, during its premiere season,
autumn 1900, Boston Cecilia and Boston Symphony
Orchestra performed
Scenes from The Song of
Hiawa
tha, and where the Hiawatha Overture was
heard in America for the first time.

Harvard Musical Association,
57 Chestnut St,
on Beacon Hill, an historic,
private musical society where Coleridge-Taylor
was celebrated and entertained on the evening
of December 9, 1904, and where he left his
signature in the guestbook and in a full
score of
Hiawatha's Wedding Feast.

Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory,
where, on December 12, 1906, Coleridge-Taylor
gave a recital, assisted by Harry T. Burleigh and
members of the Boston Symphony String Quartet. 

And where, on November 19, 1912, less
than three months after Coleridge-Taylor's death,
the young Roland Hayes—a former Fisk Jubilee 
singer—gave his Boston debut recital,
singing
Onaway! Awake, beloved!, among
other things.
Performing with Hayes were four other African-
American artists:
Harry T. Burleigh, baritone;
William H. Richardson, baritone; Roy W. Tibbs,
pianist; and Maud Cuney-Hare, pianist.

And where, on January 13, 1913, Dr. W. E. B.
Du Bois gave a "Memorial Address" during the
Coleridge-Taylor Memorial Concert, with
musical selections by Hayes, Burleigh,
Richardson, Cuney-Hare, Jacques Hoffmann,
violinist, Ludwig Nast, cellist and Frederic P.
White, organist.

At the time of his Jordan Hall Memorial
Address for Coleridge-Taylor in January 1913,
Du Bois was editor of
The Crisis, the monthly
magazine of the newly-formed NAACP.
Coleridge-Taylor, as a young, successful,
high-achieving, classically-trained musician,
had become a poster child for
The Crisis,
along with J. Rosamond Johnson, James
Reese Europe and Will Marion Cook. 
...


See you there!

Charles Kaufmann, Artistic Director
PO Box 5133
Portland, Maine 04101

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