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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the weight of her family heritage. As the daughter of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the most famous British composers of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s identity was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

Not long ago, I reflected on these legacies as I got ready to record the first-ever recording of the composer’s 1936 piano concerto. Boasting intense musical themes, soulful lyricism, and confident beats, Avril’s work will provide new listeners fascinating insight into how the composer – a wartime composer born in 1903 – conceived of her world as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about legacies. It can take a while to acclimate, to see shapes as they truly exist, to separate fact from misinterpretation, and I felt hesitant to face the composer’s background for some time.

I had so wanted Avril to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, she was. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be heard in several pieces, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to look at the names of her parent’s works to realize how he viewed himself as not only a champion of English Romanticism but a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that parent and child appeared to part ways.

The United States evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his music as opposed to the his ethnicity.

Samuel’s African Roots

During his studies at the Royal College of Music, her father – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – began embracing his heritage. Once the poet of color this literary figure arrived in England in that era, the 21-year-old composer was keen to meet him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the subsequent year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral piece that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, especially with the Black community who felt shared pride as white America judged Samuel by the excellence of his art instead of the his background.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not temper his beliefs. During that period, he participated in the pioneering African conference in England where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual WEB Du Bois and witnessed a variety of discussions, such as the oppression of the Black community there. He remained an advocate until the end. He sustained relationships with pioneers of civil rights including Du Bois and this leader, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even discussed issues of racism with the American leader while visiting to the US capital in that year. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so prominently as a creative artist that it will endure.” He succumbed in that year, at 37 years old. Yet how might Samuel have made of his child’s choice to travel to the African nation in the 1950s?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to apartheid system,” declared a title in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “struck me as the right policy”, she informed Jet. When pushed to clarify, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with this policy “as a concept” and it “could be left to resolve itself, overseen by well-meaning South Africans of all races”. Had Avril been more attuned to her father’s politics, or from segregated America, she could have hesitated about this system. Yet her life had shielded her.

Background and Inexperience

“I hold a UK passport,” she said, “and the authorities failed to question me about my race.” Therefore, with her “porcelain-white” appearance (as Jet put it), she moved among the Europeans, supported by their admiration for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and directed the broadcasting ensemble in Johannesburg, featuring the bold final section of her composition, named: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a confident pianist herself, she did not perform as the lead performer in her work. On the contrary, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

She desired, according to her, she “could introduce a change”. However, by that year, things fell apart. Once officials became aware of her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the country. Her citizenship failed to safeguard her, the UK representative advised her to leave or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the scale of her innocence became clear. “The realization was a painful one,” she stated. Increasing her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Recurring Theme

Upon contemplating with these memories, I sensed a recurring theme. The narrative of being British until it’s revoked – which recalls troops of color who defended the English throughout the global conflict and made it through but were refused rightful benefits. And the Windrush generation,