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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the burden of her parent’s legacy. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the prominent British artists of the early 20th century, the composer’s identity was shrouded in the deep shadows of history.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I sat with these memories as I made arrangements to make the world premiere recording of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Boasting emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, Avril’s work will grant audiences valuable perspective into how she – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her world as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about shadows. One needs patience to acclimate, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to face the composer’s background for a period.

I earnestly desired the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, this was true. The idyllic English tones of Samuel’s influence can be heard in many of her works, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the titles of her parent’s works to realize how he viewed himself as not just a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition as well as a advocate of the Black diaspora.

This was where parent and child seemed to diverge.

White America evaluated Samuel by the brilliance of his art 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 African father and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his African roots. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar visited the UK in 1897, the 21-year-old composer actively pursued him. He composed Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the next year incorporated his poetry for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral work that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an international hit, particularly among the Black community who felt shared pride as American society evaluated the composer by the excellence of his music instead of the colour of his skin.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Recognition did not reduce his beliefs. In 1900, he participated in the pioneering African conference in the UK where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and observed a series of speeches, such as the oppression of Black South Africans. He was an activist until the end. He sustained relationships with pioneers of civil rights including this intellectual and this leader, delivered his own speeches on equality for all, and even talked about racial problems with the US President while visiting to the presidential residence in that year. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so prominently as a composer that it will endure.” He died in that year, at 37 years old. Yet how might the composer have reacted to his offspring’s move to travel to the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician gives OK to S African Bias,” declared a title in the community journal Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. When pushed to clarify, she revised her statement: she did not support with apartheid “fundamentally” and it “ought to be permitted to run its course, overseen by well-meaning South Africans of all races”. Had Avril been more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or from the US under segregation, she might have thought twice about this system. But life had protected her.

Background and Inexperience

“I possess a British passport,” she said, “and the government agents failed to question me about my race.” Therefore, with her “light” skin (as Jet put it), she moved within European circles, lifted by their acclaim for her late father. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the Cape Town university and conducted the national orchestra in Johannesburg, programming the heroic third movement of her composition, named: “In memory of my Father.” Although a accomplished player personally, she never played as the lead performer in her piece. Rather, she always led as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

The composer aspired, in her own words, she “may foster a transformation”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. After authorities became aware of her mixed background, she was forced to leave the country. Her UK document failed to safeguard her, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or be jailed. She returned to England, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her innocence was realized. “The realization was a difficult one,” she expressed. Increasing her disgrace was the release in 1955 of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

As I sat with these memories, I felt a recurring theme. The account of being British until you’re not – which recalls Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the UK during the global conflict and survived only to be refused rightful benefits. And the Windrush generation,