Coleridge Taylor wishes for her music to be more widely known. The “African Mahler,” the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, claims to have been inspired by the East Sussex landscape.
According to her family, being a woman of color and a composer may have “held her back.” Several years after her death in Seaford in 1998, her relatives discovered boxes containing her compositions.
Fiona Dashwood, the late granddaughter of Ms. Coleridge-Taylor, recently discovered that the boxes contained her work after receiving what she initially thought was Samuel Coleridge-archived Taylor’s materials as an inheritance.
When her music was discovered, Ms. Dashwood claimed that despite being well-known in her prime, being a mixed-race woman probably hampered her. According to Ms. Dashwood, she did not receive the recognition she deserved. “As a family, we’d like to see her recognized more.”
Ms. Coleridge-African Taylor left South Africa under apartheid after the government discovered her ancestry in 1952, according to Ms. Dashwood. She also published works created in Sussex under the pen name Peter Riley.
“A wonderful composer”
“She’d had such a bad time,” Ms. Dashwood continued, “I think Sussex meant a lot to her.”
Coleridge-Taylor moved around a little, but she always returned to Sussex. She quotes a poem in which she claims the South Downs, the hills, and the sea brought her comfort.
Caroline Preece, Ms. Coleridge’s granddaughter, says learning about her grandmother’s music has been “an incredible joy.”
She stated,
“I don’t think we knew much about her in the family, not from a world perspective.”
“Everyone is realizing what an incredible composer she was. I’m hoping that many people hear her songs.”
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