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Avril Coleridge-Taylor always experienced the weight of her family reputation. As the offspring of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent British composers of the turn of the 20th century, her reputation was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I sat with these memories as I made arrangements to record the inaugural album of her 1936 piano concerto. Featuring emotional harmonies, soulful lyricism, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will provide music lovers valuable perspective into how the composer – a wartime composer born in 1903 – imagined her existence as a artist with mixed heritage.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about shadows. It can take a while to adjust, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I felt hesitant to face Avril’s past for a while.

I had so wanted Avril to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, she was. The pastoral English palettes of parental inspiration can be observed in numerous compositions, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the headings of her family’s music to understand how he viewed himself as both a champion of English Romanticism and also a voice of the African heritage.

It was here that father and daughter appeared to part ways.

The United States evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his music instead of the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the child of a African father and a white English mother – started to lean into his African roots. When the poet of color this literary figure visited the UK in that era, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He composed the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the subsequent year used the poet’s words for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an worldwide sensation, notably for African Americans who felt indirect honor as American society evaluated the composer by the quality of his compositions rather than the his background.

Principles and Actions

Fame did not temper his activism. During that period, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he met the prominent scholar this influential figure and observed a range of talks, covering the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate to his final days. He sustained relationships with pioneers of civil rights including the scholar and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the US President on a trip to the White House in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so high as a composer that it will endure.” He passed away in the early 20th century, at 37 years old. However, how would the composer have reacted to his daughter’s decision to be in this country in the 1950s?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to apartheid system,” declared a title in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “seems to me the right policy”, Avril told Jet. When asked to explain, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with this policy “in principle” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, guided by well-meaning residents of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more in tune to her family’s principles, or born in Jim Crow America, she may have reconsidered about the policy. Yet her life had protected her.

Background and Inexperience

“I possess a English document,” she stated, “and the officials never asked me about my race.” So, with her “light” complexion (as described), she floated alongside white society, lifted by their acclaim for her late father. She gave a talk about her father’s music at the Cape Town university and conducted the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in that location, programming the heroic third movement of her composition, named: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a confident pianist personally, she did not perform as the featured artist in her work. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the conductor; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, according to her, she “might bring a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. After authorities discovered her African heritage, she could no longer stay the nation. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or face arrest. She returned to England, embarrassed as the scale of her naivety dawned. “The lesson was a hard one,” she stated. Compounding her embarrassment was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these shadows, I sensed a familiar story. The narrative of identifying as British until it’s challenged – which recalls troops of color who fought on behalf of the English throughout the World War II and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,