[Samuel Coleridge-Taylor]
The Afro-British composer and conductor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) is profiled at AfriClassical.com. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a Musical Life is a new biography by the historian Jeffrey Green. It is to be published this month or next. It is a hardcover book of 256 pages and has an announced price of £60.00/$99.00.
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INTRODUCTION
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor created music that gave a great deal of pleasure to millions. After I read the 1915 biography and then traced his African doctor father in the Medical Register I suspected there was a different story to that told in the biography and entries in encyclopedias. Searching contemporary reports I noticed commentators took different views of the same music, and it became clear that their views had been affected by the music’s emotional impact. A century later websites and other comments seem to take views that are emotional rather than factual. The African genes from his father clearly visible, Coleridge-Taylor was black in a white society.”
