Celebrating 150 years of Black classical composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

NPR spoke with Sam Reenan, PhD, one of the College-Conservatory of Music’s new faculty members. Reenan, who joins the music theory faculty for the 2025-2026 academic year, spoke on Coleridge-Taylor’s legacy in Britain. 

"[His] staying power in Britain into the mid-20th century was with Hiawatha's Wedding Feast and the other cantatas in that series," Reenan told NPR. "After the first world war, there is a decades-long series of new stagings that are enormous spectacles. Then, after World War II, there are new stagings associated with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II."

Despite losing his life to pneumonia at 37, Coleridge-Taylor left a legacy of celebrated classical works including a trilogy of choral works and an overture inspired by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha. Coleridge-Taylor was also succeeded by his daughter, Avril Coleridge-Taylor, who kept his music circulating throughout the 20th century. She even followed in her father’s footsteps with her own compositions.

Read the full story on NPR.

Learn more about music theory faculty member Sam Reenan. 

Featured image at top of a portrait of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Photo/NPR/U.K. National Archives.