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Avril Coleridge-Taylor always felt the weight of her family legacy. As the daughter of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent British artists of the 1900s, Avril’s identity was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of history.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I reflected on these shadows as I prepared to make the inaugural album of Avril’s 1936 piano concerto. Boasting impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will provide audiences deep understanding into how the composer – an artist in conflict who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her world as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

However about the past. It requires time to acclimate, to see shapes as they truly exist, to separate fact from distortion, and I had been afraid to address the composer’s background for some time.

I had so wanted the composer to be a reflection of her father. Partially, that held. The idyllic English tones of parental inspiration can be observed in several pieces, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to examine the headings of her parent’s works to realize how he viewed himself as not only a standard-bearer of English Romanticism as well as a advocate of the African heritage.

At this point parent and child seemed to diverge.

American society evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his music rather than the his racial background.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the Royal College of Music, the composer – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – started to lean into his background. When the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in 1897, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He set this literary work to music and the next year used the poet’s words for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, particularly among Black Americans who felt vicarious pride as the majority evaluated the composer by the quality of his compositions instead of the his race.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not temper his activism. In 1900, he was present at the pioneering African conference in London where he made the acquaintance of the prominent scholar this influential figure and saw a series of speeches, covering the subjugation of Black South Africans. He was a campaigner to his final days. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders including Du Bois and this leader, gave addresses on racial equality, and even discussed racial problems with President Theodore Roosevelt during an invitation to the presidential residence in 1904. Regarding his compositions, Du Bois recalled, “he established his reputation so notably as a composer that it will endure.” He died in 1912, in his thirties. However, how would the composer have reacted to his daughter’s decision to travel to the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist shows support to South African policy,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. The system “appeared to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she didn’t agree with this policy “fundamentally” and it “ought to be permitted to run its course, guided by well-meaning South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more aligned to her parent’s beliefs, or from segregated America, she may have reconsidered about apartheid. But life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a British passport,” she stated, “and the officials failed to question me about my background.” Thus, with her “fair” skin (as Jet put it), she floated among the Europeans, lifted by their acclaim for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and directed the national orchestra in that location, featuring the bold final section of her concerto, named: “Dedicated to my Father.” Although a skilled pianist on her own, she never played as the soloist in her work. On the contrary, she always led as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

She desired, as she stated, she “might bring a transformation”. But by 1954, things fell apart. After authorities became aware of her Black ancestry, she had to depart the land. Her citizenship failed to safeguard her, the UK representative advised her to leave or face arrest. She came home, deeply ashamed as the extent of her naivety became clear. “The realization 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 Familiar Story

As I sat with these memories, I perceived a known narrative. The story of identifying as British until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who served for the UK throughout the second world war and survived only to be not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,