As a child of four Coleridge-Taylor could read music before he could read a book. His first musical instruction was on the violin. The piano he would not touch, and did not for some years. As one of the singing boys in St. George’s church, Croydon, he received an early training in choral work. At fifteen he entered the Royal College of Music as a student of the violin. Afterwards winning a scholarship in composition he entered, in 1893, the classes of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, with whom he studied four years or more. Mr. Coleridge-Taylor early gave evidence of creative powers of a higher order, and today he ranks as one of the most interesting and remarkable of British composers and conductors. Aside from his creative work, he is actively engaged as a teacher in Trinity college, London, and as conductor of the Handel society, London, and the Rochester Choral society. At the Gloucester festival of 1898 he attracted general notice by the performance of his =Ballade in A minor=, for orchestra, Op. 33, which he had been invited to conduct. His remarkable sympathetic setting in cantata form of portions of Longfellow’s =Hiawatha=, Op. 30, has done much to make him known in England and America. This triple choral work, with its haunting, melodic phrases, bold harmonic scheme, and vivid orchestration, was produced one part or scene at a time. The work was not planned as a whole, for the composer’s original intention was to set =Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast= only. This section was first performed at a concert of the Royal College of Music under the conductorship of Stanford, November 11, 1898. In response to an invitation from the committee of the North Staffordshire Musical Festival =The Death of Minnehaha=, Op. 30, No. 2, was written, and given under the composer’s direction at Hanley, October 26, 1899. The overture to =The Song of Hiawatha=, for full orchestra, Op. 30, No. 3, a distinct work, was composed for and performed at the Norwich musical festival of 1899. The entire work, with the added third part—=Hiawatha’s Departure=, Op. 30, No. 4—was first given by the Royal Choral society in Royal Albert hall, London, March 22, 1900, the composer conducting. The first performance of the entire work in America was given under the direction of Mr. Charles E. Knauss by the Orpheus Oratorio society in Easton, Penn., May 5, 1903. The Cecilia society of Boston, under Mr. B. J. Lang, gave the first performance of =Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast= on March 14, 1900; of =Hiawatha’s Departure= on December 5, 1900; and on December 2, 1902, =The Death of Minnehaha=, together with =Hiawatha’s Departure=. In 1902 Mr. Coleridge-Taylor was invited to conduct at the Sheffield musical festival his orchestral and choral rhapsody =Meg Blane=, Op. 48. The fact that this work was given on the same program with a Bach cantata, Dvorak’s =Stabat Mater= and Tschaikowsky’s =Symphonie Pathetique= indicates the high esteem in which the composer is held.