The Longfellow Chorus, of Portland, Maine, announces the release of the documentary “Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and His Music in America, 1900–1912,” a film directed by Charles Kaufmann, artistic director of The Longfellow Chorus. 119 minutes in length, the film covers Coleridge-Taylor’s life, birth to death, concentrating on the years between 1900 and 1912 when his life and his music — not just Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast — had a profound effect on music and culture in the United States.
The camera follows the path of Coleridge-Taylor to the Marine Barracks of the US Marine Band (Coleridge-Taylor conducted the Orchestra of the US Marine Band in 1904); to the private library of the Harvard Musical Association in Boston, where the composer left his traces in December 1904 due in part to his connection to B. J. Lang and Boston Cecilia; to the exclusive Music Shed of the Yale/Norfolk Summer Music Festival, where Maud Powell premiered Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto in June 1912; and into the magnificent Art Nouveau mansion of Coleridge-Taylor’s reclusive patrons, Carl and Ellen Battell Stoeckel.
Of special interest is the recreation of concerts, 1903–1906, of the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society in the Metropolitan AME Church, Washington, DC, with a chorus of professional singers from the DC area led by Dr. Lester Green, Metropolitan AME minister of music. Additional musical segments include a number of performances of Coleridge-Taylor songs and arias by Rodrick Dixon, tenor, Angela Brown, soprano, and Robert Honeysucker, baritone. Mr. Honeysucker recreates historic performances of Coleridge-Taylor arias by Harry T. Burleigh.
The film contains mini documentaries about the lives of American violinist Maud Powell and American ragtime composer J. Rosamond Johnson, both inspired by and influenced by Coleridge-Taylor. Of note are Powell’s transcriptions of Coleridge-Taylor’s and J. Rosamond Johnson’s settings of African-American spirituals — performed in the film by contemporary violinist Rachel Barton Pine — and an in-depth look at the American ragtime period, 1902–1920, with historic photographs.
Historians interviewed for the film include Dr. William Tortolano, the dean of Coleridge-Taylor scholarship in the US; Jeffrey Green, British author of the most up-to-date Coleridge-Taylor biography; Karen A. Shaffer, president of the Maud Powell Society for Music and Education; Wayne Shirley, former reference librarian in the Music Division of the Library of Congress; and Thelma Jacobs, historian of the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC.
The soundtrack of the film also contains portions of the recent production of the complete 4-part Coleridge-Taylor “Song of Hiawatha” (with ballet) by The Longfellow Chorus, Orchestra and Ballet Ensemble — an historic performance (March 16/17, 2013) — and other works.
For more information, including how to schedule a screening of the film, and to view trailers, visit the website of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and His Music in America.
Charles Kaufmann, Artistic Director
PO Box 5133
Portland, Maine 04101
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