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Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly felt the pressure of her father’s heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the best-known UK artists of the turn of the 20th century, her reputation was cloaked in the long shadows of the past.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I contemplated these shadows as I made arrangements to produce the world premiere recording of her 1936 piano concerto. With its emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, Avril’s work will grant music lovers valuable perspective into how this artist – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – envisioned her world as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about legacies. It requires time to adjust, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to separate fact from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to address her history for some time.

I earnestly desired her to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, this was true. The rustic British sounds of her father’s impact can be heard in several pieces, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to examine the headings of her family’s music to see how he identified as both a standard-bearer of British Romantic style and also a voice of the African heritage.

At this point Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

White America judged Samuel by the mastery of his compositions as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Family Background

As a student at the renowned institution, Samuel – the son of a parent from Sierra Leone and a British mother – started to lean into his heritage. Once the poet of color this literary figure came to London in 1897, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He composed the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the next 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.

Drawing from this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, particularly among the Black community who felt shared pride as white America evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his art instead of the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Success did not reduce his beliefs. During that period, he participated in the First Pan African Conference in London where he made the acquaintance of the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and observed a range of talks, such as the subjugation of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate throughout his life. He sustained relationships with pioneers of civil rights such as the scholar and this leader, spoke publicly on racial equality, and even talked about racial problems with President Theodore Roosevelt during an invitation to the US capital in 1904. As for his music, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so high as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He succumbed in that year, in his thirties. However, how would the composer have thought of his child’s choice to work in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer gives OK to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “struck me as the correct approach”, Avril told Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she did not support with apartheid “in principle” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, directed by benevolent residents of all races”. Had Avril been more aligned to her father’s politics, or born in Jim Crow America, she might have thought twice about this system. Yet her life had shielded her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a UK passport,” she said, “and the government agents never asked me about my background.” So, with her “fair” appearance (as Jet put it), she floated among the Europeans, lifted by their praise for her late father. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, featuring the inspiring part of her composition, titled: “In remembrance of my Father.” Even though a confident pianist herself, she did not perform as the featured artist in her piece. Rather, she always led as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

Avril hoped, as she stated, she “might bring a transformation”. However, by that year, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents learned of her African heritage, she had to depart the country. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or be jailed. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the magnitude of her innocence became clear. “This experience was a difficult one,” she expressed. Adding to her humiliation was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her sudden departure from the country.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these shadows, I perceived a recurring theme. The narrative of holding UK citizenship until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the UK in the World War II and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,