Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Festival

2025 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) was a British composer and conductor. He was particularly known for his three cantatas on the epic 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha by American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Coleridge-Taylor premiered the first section in 1898, when he was 23. Of mixed-race descent, Coleridge-Taylor achieved such success that he was referred to by white musicians in New York City as the "African Mahler" when he had three tours of the United States in the early 1900s.

Tayo Aluko & Friends CIC and Blackfest present a Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Festival featuring Aluko's one-man play, Coleridge-Taylor of Freetown (followed by a Q&A) and a concert featuring singers and instrumentalists singing and playing the composer's music.