🔗 Share this article

The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly experienced the weight of her parent’s legacy. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the prominent UK musicians of the early 20th century, her identity was shrouded in the long shadows of history.

A World Premiere

In recent months, I sat with these shadows as I got ready to produce the first-ever recording of her 1936 piano concerto. With its intense musical themes, heartfelt tunes, and bold rhythms, this piece will grant new listeners valuable perspective into how she – a composer during war born in 1903 – imagined her world as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about shadows. It requires time to adjust, to recognize outlines as they really are, to tell reality from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to address Avril’s past for a while.

I deeply hoped her to be a reflection of her father. Partially, she was. The idyllic English tones of Samuel’s influence can be heard in several pieces, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the headings of her family’s music to realize how he heard himself as not only a champion of English Romanticism but a representative of the African heritage.

This was where parent and child appeared to part ways.

American society assessed the composer by the excellence of his music rather than the his racial background.

Parental Heritage

During his studies at the Royal College of Music, the composer – the son of a parent from Sierra Leone and a British mother – began embracing his heritage. When the African American poet this literary figure visited the UK in that era, the young musician eagerly sought him out. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances to music and the following year used the poet’s words for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral work that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an worldwide sensation, especially with African Americans who felt vicarious pride as American society judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions as opposed to the his background.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Recognition did not reduce his activism. During that period, he participated in the pioneering African conference in England where he met the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and observed a range of talks, including on the oppression of the Black community there. He remained an advocate throughout his life. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders like this intellectual and Booker T Washington, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the US President on a trip to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so notably as a musician that it will endure.” He died in 1912, aged 37. However, how would Samuel have thought of his daughter’s decision to be in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Offspring of Renowned Musician shows support to S African Bias,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. When pushed to clarify, she revised her statement: she did not support with the system “in principle” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, directed by well-meaning South Africans of every background”. If Avril had been more in tune to her father’s politics, or raised in segregated America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. However, existence had shielded her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a English document,” she stated, “and the government agents failed to question me about my background.” Therefore, with her “fair” skin (as Jet put it), she floated within European circles, lifted by their praise for her renowned family member. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and conducted the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, programming the heroic third movement of her concerto, named: “In memory of my Father.” Even though a skilled pianist on her own, she did not perform as the featured artist in her piece. Instead, she consistently conducted as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “might bring a shift”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. After authorities discovered her mixed background, she could no longer stay the nation. Her citizenship didn’t protect her, the UK representative advised her to leave or risk imprisonment. She came home, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her naivety became clear. “The lesson was a painful one,” she stated. Adding to her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these memories, I perceived a known narrative. The account of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – which recalls troops of color who defended the English in the second world war and made it through but were denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,