🔗 Share this article

The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually felt the weight of her father’s reputation. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known UK musicians of the turn of the 20th century, her name was cloaked in the long shadows of bygone eras.

A World Premiere

Not long ago, I contemplated these shadows as I prepared to record the inaugural album of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Featuring impassioned harmonies, soulful lyricism, and confident beats, this piece will offer new listeners fascinating insight into how she – a wartime composer originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her world as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about legacies. One needs patience to acclimate, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to address her history for a while.

I earnestly desired the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, this was true. The idyllic English tones of parental inspiration can be heard in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the names of her parent’s works to realize how he heard himself as not only a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition as well as a advocate of the African diaspora.

It was here that Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

White America judged Samuel by the mastery of his music as opposed to the his ethnicity.

Family Background

During his studies at the renowned institution, her father – the offspring of a African father and a Caucasian parent – turned toward his background. When the poet of color this literary figure visited the UK in the late 19th century, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He composed Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the next year incorporated his poetry for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral piece that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, notably for the Black community who felt indirect honor as white America evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his music instead of the his background.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Fame did not reduce his beliefs. In 1900, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in London where he encountered the Black American thinker WEB Du Bois and saw a series of speeches, covering the subjugation of African people in South Africa. He was an activist throughout his life. He sustained relationships with pioneers of civil rights including this intellectual and the educator Washington, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even discussed racial problems with President Theodore Roosevelt during an invitation to the US capital in that year. As for his music, Du Bois recalled, “he established his reputation so prominently as a composer that it will long be remembered.” He died in the early 20th century, at 37 years old. But what would the composer have reacted to his daughter’s decision to work in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician shows support to South African policy,” appeared as a heading in the community journal Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she didn’t agree with apartheid “in principle” and it “ought to be permitted to run its course, overseen by well-meaning residents of all races”. Had Avril been more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or born in the US under segregation, she might have thought twice about this system. But life had protected her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a English document,” she stated, “and the officials failed to question me about my background.” Therefore, with her “porcelain-white” appearance (as Jet put it), she moved alongside white society, supported by their praise for her renowned family member. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the Cape Town university and conducted the national orchestra in that location, featuring the heroic third movement of her composition, subtitled: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a confident pianist herself, she did not perform as the soloist in her work. On the contrary, she consistently conducted as the conductor; and so the segregated ensemble performed under her direction.

She desired, as she stated, she “could introduce a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, the situation collapsed. Once officials became aware of her African heritage, she could no longer stay the land. Her British passport offered no defense, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or risk imprisonment. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the extent of her innocence became clear. “The realization was a difficult one,” she stated. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these legacies, I felt a known narrative. The story of identifying as British until it’s revoked – that brings to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the UK in the second world war and survived only to be not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,