🔗 Share this article

Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly felt the weight of her family reputation. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known British composers of the 1900s, her reputation was shrouded in the long shadows of bygone eras.

A World Premiere

Not long ago, I sat with these memories as I made arrangements to make the inaugural album of her piano concerto from 1936. With its emotional harmonies, soulful lyricism, and valiant rhythms, her composition will provide audiences valuable perspective into how the composer – a wartime composer originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her reality as a female composer of color.

Legacy and Reality

However about shadows. It can take a while to adjust, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to separate fact from misrepresentation, and I was reluctant to address her history for a while.

I deeply hoped her to be her father’s daughter. Partially, she was. The pastoral English palettes of her father’s impact can be observed in several pieces, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the names of her father’s compositions to understand how he identified as both a standard-bearer of English Romanticism but a voice of the Black diaspora.

At this point parent and child appeared to part ways.

The United States evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his compositions rather than the his ethnicity.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the Royal College of Music, her father – the child of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – started to lean into his African roots. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the young musician was keen to meet him. He set this literary work as a composition and the following year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an worldwide sensation, especially with the Black community who felt indirect honor as the majority assessed his work by the quality of his art instead of the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Fame did not temper his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he attended the pioneering African conference in London where he made the acquaintance of the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and witnessed a variety of discussions, such as the oppression of Black South Africans. He remained an advocate to his final days. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders including the scholar and this leader, delivered his own speeches on equality for all, and even discussed issues of racism with the US President on a trip to the White House in that year. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he established his reputation so high as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in 1912, at 37 years old. But what would the composer have reacted to his daughter’s decision to be in this country in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to apartheid system,” declared a title in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the appropriate course”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she didn’t agree with this policy “fundamentally” and it “ought to be permitted to work itself out, guided by well-meaning residents of every background”. If Avril had been more attuned to her family’s principles, or born in the US under segregation, she might have thought twice about the policy. Yet her life had sheltered her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a UK passport,” she remarked, “and the authorities never asked me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “fair” appearance (as Jet put it), she traveled within European circles, supported by their admiration for her renowned family member. She presented about her father’s music at the University of Cape Town and led the broadcasting ensemble in that location, featuring the bold final section of her concerto, titled: “In remembrance of my Father.” Although a accomplished player on her own, she avoided playing as the lead performer in her concerto. Instead, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “may foster a shift”. However, by that year, things fell apart. Once officials became aware of her Black ancestry, she was forced to leave the land. Her UK document offered no defense, the UK representative advised her to leave or face arrest. She came home, feeling great shame as the extent of her inexperience was realized. “The realization was a hard one,” she stated. Compounding her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her forced leaving from the country.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these memories, I perceived a recurring theme. The story of identifying as British until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind troops of color who fought on behalf of the UK in the global conflict and made it through but were refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,