Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
(1875-1912), ComposerSitter in 6 portraits
Anglo-African composer born in London to an English mother and Creole father, Dr Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor from Sierra Leone, whom he never knew. He began playing the violin at the age of five, joining the choir of St George's Presbyterian Church in Croydon, where H. A. Walters oversaw his musical development and later helped organise his admission to the Royal College of Music in 1890. He came to prominence in 1898 at the Gloucester Festival with an orchestral Ballade in A Minor, followed by his much acclaimed trilogy Hiawatha's Wedding Feast (1898), The Death of Minnehaha (1899), and Hiawatha's Departure (1900). Sir Hubert Parry, the principal of the Royal College of Music described the first performance of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast as 'one of the most remarkable events in modern English musical history'.
by Harry John Kempsell, for French and Co
photogravure postcard, 1901
NPG x32771
published by Breitkopf & Hartel
vintage bromide print, circa 1905
NPG x135708
after Elliott & Fry
cigarette card, published 1914
NPG x135999
The Makers of British Music: Famous Living British Composers of the Old School and the New
after Samuel Begg
relief halftone, published 24 October 1908
NPG D42284
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