Born to an English mother and Sierra Leonean father, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an enormously popular composer in the Edwardian England of his day, transcending constrictions of class and race. In particular, his cantata Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast was a huge hit, the music of which sold hundreds and thousands of copies—yet, somehow, in the intervening years his legacy has dwindled. Like much of the music from that time and place, Coleridge-Taylor’s output is often very expressive and refined in the Brahmsian tradition, but a lifelong interest in his African roots constantly influenced his unique voice.