🔗 Share this article

This talented musician constantly experienced the pressure of her father’s legacy. As the offspring of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the most famous English composers of the early 20th century, her name was shrouded in the deep shadows of bygone eras.

A World Premiere

Not long ago, I contemplated these shadows as I prepared to record the inaugural album of her piano concerto from 1936. Boasting emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will provide audiences fascinating insight into how the composer – a wartime composer born in 1903 – envisioned her reality as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. One needs patience to adapt, to see shapes as they actually appear, to separate fact from misrepresentation, and I was reluctant to confront the composer’s background for a period.

I deeply hoped Avril to be a reflection of her father. Partially, this was true. The rustic British sounds of parental inspiration can be heard in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the headings of her father’s compositions to understand how he viewed himself as both a flag bearer of English Romanticism but a advocate of the Black diaspora.

This was where father and daughter appeared to part ways.

The United States judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions rather than the his racial background.

Family Background

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, her father – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – started to lean into his background. At the time the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in 1897, the young musician eagerly sought him out. He adapted the poet’s African Romances into music and the following year incorporated his poetry for a musical work, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an worldwide sensation, especially with the Black community who felt shared pride as the majority assessed his work by the quality of his compositions instead of the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Success did not temper his beliefs. During that period, he attended the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he encountered the Black American thinker the renowned Du Bois and observed a series of speeches, such as the mistreatment of the Black community there. He remained an advocate until the end. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders like this intellectual and this leader, gave addresses on ending discrimination, and even discussed matters of race with the US President while visiting to the White House in 1904. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he established his reputation so notably as a creative artist that it will endure.” He died in that year, aged 37. Yet how might the composer have made of his offspring’s move to work in this country in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician gives OK to South African policy,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the appropriate course”, the composer stated Jet. When asked to explain, she qualified her remarks: she did not support with this policy “as a concept” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, guided by benevolent South Africans of every background”. If Avril had been more in tune to her family’s principles, or born in segregated America, she may have reconsidered about apartheid. Yet her life had sheltered her.

Identity and Naivety

“I possess a British passport,” she said, “and the government agents never asked me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “fair” appearance (as described), she floated within European circles, supported by their praise for her late father. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and led the broadcasting ensemble in Johannesburg, featuring the inspiring part of her concerto, named: “Dedicated to my Father.” While a accomplished player personally, she avoided playing as the soloist in her work. Instead, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “may foster a change”. But by 1954, things fell apart. When government agents became aware of her mixed background, she could no longer stay the country. Her citizenship offered no defense, the diplomatic official urged her to go or face arrest. She came home, feeling great shame as the extent of her innocence dawned. “The lesson was a hard one,” she lamented. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I perceived a familiar story. The narrative of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – that brings to mind troops of color who served for the British throughout the global conflict and lived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,