Decca And Chineke! Orchestra Announce First Album In New Partnership, ‘Coleridge-Taylor’, Out September 30

The
album features music by the celebrated African-British composer Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor with an appearance by award-winning U.S. violinist
Elena Urioste.

Broadway World

On September 30, 2022, the Chineke! Orchestra will release a new
album, Coleridge-Taylor. The album features music by the celebrated
African-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with an appearance by
award-winning U.S. violinist Elena Urioste, plus a world premiere
recording of a work by Coleridge-Taylor’s daughter Avril
Coleridge-Taylor.

Coleridge-Taylor will be the first release on
Chineke! Records, the newly created partnership between Decca and the
Chineke! Orchestra, Europe’s first professional majority Black and
ethnically diverse orchestra.

The release commemorates the 110th
anniversary of the composer’s death (September 1st, 1912). The album
includes the famous Violin Concerto in G minor which was originally
written for Minnie “Maud” Powell, a champion of music by
African-American and female composers, first performed days after the
composer’s death. Another highlight is the 1898 African Suite, based on
the ground-breaking poetry of the African-American poet Paul Lawrence
Dunbar, a major influence on Coleridge-Taylor taking inspiration from
the ideas of Pan-Africanism. 

Executive Producer of Chineke! Records is Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE,
Founder, Artistic, and Executive Director of the Chineke! Foundation,
which supports, inspires, and encourages Black and ethnically diverse
classical musicians working in the U.K. and Europe, by providing a
platform on which to excel.

Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE says, “Chineke!’s debut concert began with Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor and it could not be more fitting that we launch our
first Chineke! Records album in partnership with Decca with music by the
same composer whose music clearly comes straight from the heart.
Included is a masterpiece by his daughter Avril. Their glorious music
has been silent for too long; some of it never heard, and we promise an
album that you will return to over and over again.”

Tom Lewis and
Laura Monks, Co-Presidents of Decca Label Group, say, “Chi-chi’s vision,
energy and ambition are extraordinary. She is a trailblazer with an
important mission and, together with Chineke!, she has recorded
compositions by some of the world’s most important yet under-represented
classical composers. We are committed to spreading the incredible
music, talent and message of Chineke! around the world.”

Coleridge-Taylor Tracklist

CD1

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Othello Orchestral Suite, Op. 79

Avril Coleridge-Taylor – Sussex Landscape, Op. 27

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – African Suite, Op. 35

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Ballade in A minor, Op. 33

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Petite Suite de Concert, Op. 7