🔗 Share this article

The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor always bore the weight of her parent’s heritage. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the prominent English composers of the 1900s, her identity was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of history.

The First Recording

In recent months, I contemplated these shadows as I prepared to record the inaugural album of Avril’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. Boasting emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, this piece will offer new listeners valuable perspective into how the composer – a wartime composer who entered the world in 1903 – conceived of her existence as a female composer of color.

Legacy and Reality

Yet about shadows. It requires time to acclimate, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to tell reality from distortion, and I felt hesitant to face Avril’s past for some time.

I earnestly desired the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, she was. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be detected in several pieces, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the titles of her father’s compositions to understand how he viewed himself as both a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition as well as a advocate of the Black diaspora.

It was here that father and daughter seemed to diverge.

White America judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions instead of the colour of his skin.

Family Background

During his studies at the renowned institution, Samuel – the child of a African father and a white English mother – began embracing his heritage. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar visited the UK in that era, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He composed the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the next year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral work that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, particularly among the Black community who felt shared pride as white America judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions rather than the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Fame failed to diminish his beliefs. During that period, he was present at the First Pan African Conference in London where he met the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and observed a range of talks, covering the subjugation of the Black community there. He was an activist to his final days. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders including the scholar and the educator Washington, delivered his own speeches on ending discrimination, and even talked about issues of racism with the US President on a trip to the White House in 1904. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so prominently as a creative artist that it will endure.” He died in that year, aged 37. Yet how might her father have made of his offspring’s move to be in the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. This policy “struck me as the correct approach”, the composer stated Jet. When asked to explain, she revised her statement: she didn’t agree with apartheid “fundamentally” and it “ought to be permitted to work itself out, guided by well-meaning residents of diverse ethnicities”. Had Avril been more attuned to her family’s principles, or from Jim Crow America, she may have reconsidered about apartheid. However, existence had shielded her.

Identity and Naivety

“I have a British passport,” she remarked, “and the officials never asked me about my race.” So, with her “light” complexion (as described), she floated within European circles, buoyed up by their admiration for her late father. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and directed the broadcasting ensemble in the city, featuring the bold final section of her Piano Concerto, subtitled: “In memory of my Father.” While a accomplished player personally, she never played as the lead performer in her work. On the contrary, she always led as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

Avril hoped, in her own words, she “might bring a change”. However, by that year, circumstances deteriorated. After authorities learned of her mixed background, she had to depart the land. Her UK document didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or face arrest. She returned to England, embarrassed as the magnitude of her innocence became clear. “This experience was a painful one,” she expressed. Compounding her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Common Narrative

As I sat with these memories, I felt a known narrative. The story of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the British during the World War II and lived only to be not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,