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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually felt the burden of her parent’s heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the prominent English artists of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s name was cloaked in the long shadows of bygone eras.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I contemplated these memories as I prepared to record the first-ever recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. With its emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and bold rhythms, this piece will offer new listeners valuable perspective into how the composer – a composer during war born in 1903 – conceived of her world as a woman of colour.

Legacy and Reality

Yet about shadows. It requires time to adjust, to recognize outlines as they truly exist, to tell reality from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to address the composer’s background for some time.

I had so wanted the composer to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, that held. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be observed in several pieces, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to look at the names of her family’s music to realize how he heard himself as not just a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition and also a voice of the African heritage.

At this point father and daughter appeared to part ways.

White America judged Samuel by the brilliance of his art instead of the his racial background.

Family Background

While he was studying at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the child of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – started to lean into his African roots. When the poet of color the renowned Dunbar arrived in England in the late 19th century, the 21-year-old composer was keen to meet him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances as a composition and the next year used the poet’s words for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral work that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an international hit, especially with the Black community who felt shared pride as the majority evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his music rather than the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not reduce his beliefs. During that period, he attended the pioneering African conference in England where he made the acquaintance of the Black American thinker this influential figure and witnessed a series of speeches, such as the oppression of the Black community there. He was a campaigner throughout his life. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders including Du Bois and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with President Theodore Roosevelt while visiting to the White House in that year. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so prominently as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in 1912, aged 37. But what would Samuel have thought of his offspring’s move to work in this country in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Daughter of Famous Composer gives OK to S African Bias,” declared a title in the Black American publication Jet magazine. The system “struck me as the right policy”, Avril told Jet. When pushed to clarify, she qualified her remarks: she did not support with the system “as a concept” and it “ought to be permitted to resolve itself, overseen by well-meaning South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. Had Avril been more aligned to her family’s principles, or born in segregated America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. Yet her life had shielded her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I hold a UK passport,” she stated, “and the officials never asked me about my background.” Thus, with her “fair” complexion (according to the magazine), she moved alongside white society, supported by their admiration for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the educational institution and led the national orchestra in Johannesburg, including the heroic third movement of her composition, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” While a confident pianist personally, she never played as the lead performer in her piece. Rather, she consistently conducted as the leader; and so the orchestra of the era performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, according to her, she “may foster a shift”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. When government agents learned of her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the country. Her UK document offered no defense, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or be jailed. She came home, embarrassed as the magnitude of her innocence became clear. “The realization was a hard one,” she lamented. Compounding her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from South Africa.

A Recurring Theme

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I sensed a recurring theme. The account of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who served for the British during the global conflict and survived only to be refused rightful benefits. Along with the Windrush era,