SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was born in London, England. His parents were Alice Hare Martin, an English woman, and Dr. Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor, a Sierra Leonean Creole, who returned to Africa not knowing of a son in London. Samuel’s middle name Coleridge was after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and he later assumed the name Coleridge-Taylor. He was raised in Croydon (London) by his mother and her father. He studied violin at the Royal College of Music and composition under Charles Villiers Stanford. He was appointed a professor at the Crystal Palace School of Music and conducted the orchestra at the Croydon Conservatoire. Coleridge-Taylor earned a reputation as a composer and was later helped by Edward Elgar. Music editor and critic August Jaeger considered him “a genius.” Coleridge-Taylor made three tours of the United States, which increased his interest in his racial heritage, and at one stage seriously considered migrating there. In 1904, he was received by President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House, an unusual honor in those days for a man of African descent and appearance. He was given the title the “African Mahler” from the white orchestral musicians in New York in 1910. Greatly admired, a 200-voice African-American chorus was founded in Washington, D.C., named the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Society. He composed orchestral works, chamber music, anthems, part-songs and other works; his greatest success was the cantata Hiawatha’s Weddingfeast. He died of pneumonia at age 37.

All are mixed chorus; some contain divisi.

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VOICING

TEXT

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All my Stars forsake me

 
Alice Meynell
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By the lone sea shore

 
Charles Mackay
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Dead in the Sierras

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Joaquin Miller
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Isle of Beauty

 
Thomas Haynes Bayly
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Land of the Sun

 
Byron
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Sea drift

SSAATTBB
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Song of Proserpin

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Shelley
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Summer is gone

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Christina Rossetti
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The evening star

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Thomas Campbell
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The lee shore

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Thomas Hood
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Viking Song

w/piano
David McKee Wright
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Whispers of summer

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Kathleen Mary Easmon Simango
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Three Choral Ballads by Longfellow Op. 54. 1.

Beside the ungathered rice he lay

w/piano
Longfellow
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Three Choral Ballads by Longfellow Op. 54. 2.

She dwells by great Kenhawa’s side

w/piano
Longfellow
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Three Choral Ballads by Longfellow Op. 54. 3.

Loud he sang the psalm of David

w/piano
Longfellow
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