Coleridge-Taylor: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feat & The Bamboula

On 15 August, we will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, an atypical figure in British music who was one of the first Afro-descendants to achieve success as a composer. Supported and encouraged by the greatest musicians of his time (Elgar, Stanford, who was his teacher, Sullivan), he rose to fame in 1898 with the premiere of his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, based on Longfellow's epic poem inspired by the traditions of the Ojibwe indigenous people. This work would be performed regularly for years to come and even brought him fame in America! One of his latest pieces, the rhapsodic dance The Bamboula, is also inspired by non-European traditions, in this case the rhythms and instruments imported to the Caribbean by African slaves.