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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor always felt the burden of her family heritage. Being the child of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known UK artists of the 1900s, Avril’s name was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of history.

An Inaugural Recording

Not long ago, I contemplated these shadows as I got ready to record the inaugural album of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Boasting impassioned harmonies, soulful lyricism, and confident beats, this piece will provide music lovers fascinating insight into how she – a wartime composer who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her world as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

However about the past. One needs patience to adjust, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to separate fact from distortion, and I felt hesitant to address Avril’s past for a period.

I had so wanted her to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, that held. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be heard in numerous compositions, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the titles of her family’s music to realize how he viewed himself as both a standard-bearer of English Romanticism but a advocate of the African diaspora.

This was where Samuel and Avril seemed to diverge.

American society evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his music as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the renowned institution, Samuel – the son of a African father and a white English mother – started to lean into his African roots. At the time the poet of color this literary figure visited the UK in 1897, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He adapted this literary work to music and the following year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, especially with the Black community who felt vicarious pride as the majority judged Samuel by the brilliance of his music instead of the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not reduce his activism. At the turn of the century, he attended the pioneering African conference in England where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual this influential figure and saw a range of talks, such as the oppression of the Black community there. He was a campaigner throughout his life. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders like Du Bois and this leader, spoke publicly on equality for all, and even discussed issues of racism with the American leader on a trip to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so high as a musician that it will endure.” He died in 1912, aged 37. However, how would Samuel have thought of his offspring’s move to work in this country in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Offspring of Renowned Musician gives OK to S African Bias,” appeared as a heading in the African American magazine Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she did not support with apartheid “in principle” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, overseen by good-intentioned residents of all races”. Had Avril been more in tune to her parent’s beliefs, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about the policy. However, existence had sheltered her.

Identity and Naivety

“I possess a UK passport,” she said, “and the authorities never asked me about my race.” Thus, with her “porcelain-white” appearance (as Jet put it), she traveled among the Europeans, supported by their acclaim 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, programming the bold final section of her Piano Concerto, subtitled: “In memory of my Father.” Even though a accomplished player personally, she avoided playing as the lead performer in her concerto. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the conductor; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

She desired, according to her, she “may foster a transformation”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents discovered her mixed background, she was forced to leave the nation. Her UK document didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or risk imprisonment. She came home, embarrassed as the extent of her inexperience became clear. “The realization was a painful one,” she lamented. Adding to her humiliation was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Recurring Theme

Upon contemplating with these memories, I felt a familiar story. The account of identifying as British until you’re not – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who served for the UK throughout the second world war and survived only to be denied their due compensation. And the Windrush generation,