The British composer was a generational success story before his death at 37 — yet keeping that legacy in view has always been a challenge, even during his lifetime.

At just 19 years old, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was told: don’t imitate Brahms.So he didn’t—he answered him. His Clarinet Quintet uses the same instruments and structure as Brahms’s, but ...

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an accomplished musician who lived among the pantheon of British composers, but he was defined by his black ancestry and almost forgotten.

Coleridge-Taylor was also deeply interested in African American musical themes, and his body of solo instrumental and chamber works to this end became prized by Black American classical musicians.

The British composer was a generational success story before his death at 37 — yet keeping that legacy in view has always been a challenge, even during his lifetime.

150 years of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, overlooked icon of Black classical music By Garrett Schumann Aug 14, 2025 3:22pm (NPR) Composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, circa 1905. Image: U.K. National ...

The entwined experiences of Avril and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor help illustrate the obstacles that have challenged Black composers in the 20th and 21st centuries, societal limits that the father and ...