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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor always bore the weight of her family reputation. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known British musicians of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s name was shrouded in the deep shadows of the past.

The First Recording

Not long ago, I sat with these shadows as I made arrangements to produce the first-ever recording of the composer’s 1936 piano concerto. Featuring intense musical themes, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, her composition will offer audiences deep understanding into how this artist – a wartime composer originating from the early 1900s – imagined her reality as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about the past. It requires time to adapt, to see shapes as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to confront Avril’s past for a while.

I earnestly desired the composer to be her father’s daughter. Partially, this was true. The rustic British sounds of parental inspiration can be detected in many of her works, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to review the names of her father’s compositions to understand how he identified as not only a champion of English Romanticism as well as a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that Samuel and Avril began to differ.

The United States evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his music instead of the his racial background.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the renowned institution, her father – the offspring of a African father and a white English mother – turned toward his African roots. Once the poet of color this literary figure came to London in that era, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He adapted this literary work into music and the next year used the poet’s words for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, particularly among African Americans who felt shared pride as the majority judged Samuel by the brilliance of his music rather than the his race.

Activism and Politics

Success failed to diminish his activism. During that period, he attended the First Pan African Conference in London where he made the acquaintance of the prominent scholar this influential figure and observed a range of talks, such as the subjugation of the Black community there. He was a campaigner to his final days. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders including this intellectual and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on equality for all, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the American leader while visiting to the White House in that year. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so prominently as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He died in 1912, at 37 years old. But what would the composer have made of his offspring’s move to be in the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to S African Bias,” appeared as a heading in the African American magazine Jet magazine. This policy “struck me as the appropriate course”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she didn’t agree with this policy “fundamentally” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, overseen by well-meaning residents of diverse ethnicities”. Had Avril been more aligned to her father’s politics, or from Jim Crow America, she may have reconsidered about apartheid. However, existence had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I hold a English document,” she remarked, “and the authorities did not inquire me about my race.” Thus, with her “light” complexion (according to the magazine), she moved alongside white society, buoyed up by their acclaim for her renowned family member. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the Cape Town university and conducted the broadcasting ensemble in that location, programming the heroic third movement of her composition, subtitled: “In memory of my Father.” While a confident pianist herself, she did not perform as the soloist in her concerto. On the contrary, she consistently conducted as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “could introduce a transformation”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. Once officials became aware of her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the nation. Her British passport failed to safeguard her, the diplomatic official urged her to go or be jailed. She came home, deeply ashamed as the scale of her innocence became clear. “The realization was a hard one,” she expressed. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her forced leaving from that nation.

A Common Narrative

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I perceived a familiar story. The narrative of identifying as British until it’s challenged – which recalls troops of color who defended the UK during the global conflict and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,