🔗 Share this article

The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly experienced the pressure of her family heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent British musicians of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s identity was enveloped in the deep shadows of history.

The First Recording

In recent months, I contemplated these legacies as I got ready to record the world premiere recording of the composer’s 1936 piano concerto. Featuring impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, her composition will grant new listeners valuable perspective into how this artist – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – imagined her world as a artist with mixed heritage.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about the past. It requires time to acclimate, to recognize outlines as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to address her history for a period.

I had so wanted her to be following in her father’s footsteps. In some ways, she was. The pastoral English palettes of Samuel’s influence can be heard in many of her works, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the titles of her father’s compositions to realize how he viewed himself as not only a flag bearer of English Romanticism as well as a representative of the African heritage.

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

The United States judged Samuel by the excellence of his art instead of the colour of his skin.

Samuel’s African Roots

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, Samuel – the child of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his background. Once the Black American writer this literary figure came to London in 1897, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He set the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the subsequent year adapted his verses 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 this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an international hit, especially with African Americans who felt indirect honor as American society evaluated the composer by the excellence of his art as opposed to the his race.

Activism and Politics

Recognition did not reduce his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in England where he encountered the prominent scholar the renowned Du Bois and saw a variety of discussions, covering the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He was a campaigner until the end. He maintained ties with pioneers of civil rights such as the scholar and Booker T Washington, gave addresses on equality for all, and even discussed issues of racism with the US President during an invitation to the White House in 1904. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he established his reputation so notably as a creative artist that it will endure.” He succumbed in the early 20th century, at 37 years old. However, how would her father have thought of his offspring’s move to travel to the African nation in the 1950s?

Issues and Stance

“Offspring of Renowned Musician gives OK to South African policy,” appeared as a heading in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the correct approach”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with the system “as a concept” and it “could be left to run its course, directed by well-meaning people of every background”. If Avril had been more in tune to her family’s principles, or born in segregated America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. But life had shielded her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I hold a English document,” she remarked, “and the government agents never asked me about my background.” So, with her “porcelain-white” complexion (as Jet put it), she floated among the Europeans, supported by their acclaim for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and directed the national orchestra in that location, programming the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, named: “In remembrance of my Father.” Even though a confident pianist on her own, she avoided playing as the featured artist in her piece. On the contrary, she always led as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble played under her baton.

The composer aspired, according to her, she “might bring a shift”. However, by that year, things fell apart. Once officials discovered her African heritage, she had to depart the land. Her citizenship didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or be jailed. She went back to the UK, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her naivety became clear. “The lesson was a hard one,” she lamented. Increasing her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from that nation.

A Familiar Story

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I felt a known narrative. The story of identifying as British until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who defended the English during the second world war and survived only to be denied their due compensation. And the Windrush generation,