The Mixed Museum follows Samuel Coleridge-Taylor to Gloucester
The Mixed Museum’s latest project – an audio series following in the footsteps of the British Black mixed race composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – took members of The Mixed Museum team to Gloucester in December. They were there to retrace his triumphant visit to the Three Choirs Festival in 1898, as the youngest composer ever to be asked to compose for the prestigious event.

Tracks of a Trailblazer: a forthcoming audio series
It was a cold day in December, not long before Christmas, when The Mixed Museum’s Director, Dr Chamion Caballero, and Freelance Editorial Director Laura Smith met at Paddington station in London to catch a train to Gloucester.
The Mixed Museum team members were there to record the first of three episodes of Tracks of a Trailblazer. This new audio series, produced by Laura with support from Front Ear Podcasts, follows in the footsteps of the British Black mixed race composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and features original research by Chamion.
Spanning Coleridge-Taylor’s early career at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century and funded by Great Western Railways’ Customer and Community Improvement Fund, the series will retrace his train travels across the GWR network, looking at his work as a composer, conductor, and musical judge.
It will also explore what life was like in Britain for this son of a Sierra Leonean father and white English mother as the Victorian era gave way to the Edwardian, and document his rise to become a global symbol of Black achievement and excellence, before his tragic death in 1912 at the age of just 37. The audio series will also be accompanied by a digital map and original illustrations from our Artist in Residence, Kinga Markus.
When Samuel Coleridge-Taylor went to Gloucester
Episode one focuses on Coleridge-Taylor’s visit to the city of Gloucester, in the south west of England, where he travelled in 1898 to conduct a new piece composed especially for the prestigious Three Choirs Festival.

At just 23 and fresh out of the Royal College of Music, he was at that point the youngest composer ever to be commissioned to write music for the festival, and it was his contemporary, the composer Edward Elgar, along with others, who put his name forward.The resulting piece, Ballade in A Minor, was received by a rapturous crowd, with many there astonished to discover Coleridge-Taylor was of Black heritage.
Festivals such as the Three Choirs were a precious chance for people to hear music, in the days before most British homes had radios, and more than 14,000 visitors attended the festival that year. The visit was an important stepping stone towards Coleridge-Taylor finishing what would become his most famous and life-changing work, a trilogy of cantatas (works for choir and orchestra) called The Song of Hiawatha, inspired by an epic poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Following Coleridge-Taylor's footsteps at Shire Hall
The team’s day of recording took in the new Gloucester station – rebuilt in the 1970s, so very different to the one the composer would have arrived into – as well as the impressive 1816 concert hall Shire Hall, now a council building, where non-religious works including Coleridge-Taylor’s were performed.
Simon Carpenter, Volunteer Archivist at the Three Choirs Festival, which celebrates its 310th anniversary this year, was kind enough to show Chamion and Laura around, including taking them on an impromptu tour of the glorious Gloucester Cathedral, where Coleridge-Taylor had his photograph taken with the hundreds of performers present.
Images: Chamion and Laura on their visit to Gloucester, including interviewing Simon Carpenter at Shire Hall and Gloucester Cathedral
Simon will appear as a guest on the series, alongside other experts exploring Samuel’s life, music and train travels, including Nick Roberts of the Museum of Music History, Professor Caroline Bressey of University College London, Chi-chi Nwanoku of Chineke! Orchestra and Dr Oliver Betts of the National Railway Museum.
Tracks of a Trailblazer will be coming to The Mixed Museum’s website and all podcast platforms soon. Keep an eye on our blogposts, social channels and the newsletter for updates.
Learn more
Read our blogpost about the origins of the project, Funding news! Our new project exploring the train travels of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Find out about Coleridge-Taylor’s visit to Brighton and his life-changing work, The Song of Hiawatha, in our mini exhibition, A Tremendous Ovation
Watch our short film about Coleridge-Taylor’s 1908 visit to Brighton, featuring original artwork by Artist In Residence, Kinga Markus (YouTube | Duration: 5:08 minutes)
Learn about Chief Os-ke-non-ton, the Native American singer who appeared in numerous British stage productions of Hiawatha in the 1920s-1930s at the Museum of Music History’s digital exhibition about his life and work, which has a contribution by The Mixed Museum.