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Avril Coleridge-Taylor always bore the pressure of her family legacy. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known British composers of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s name was shrouded in the lingering obscurity of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I sat with these legacies as I made arrangements to record the world premiere recording of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. Boasting emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, her composition will provide music lovers fascinating insight into how she – an artist in conflict born in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

However about legacies. It requires time to adjust, to recognize outlines as they really are, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to face the composer’s background for some time.

I had so wanted Avril to be a reflection of her father. Partially, she was. The rustic British sounds of her father’s impact can be heard in numerous compositions, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the names of her family’s music to understand how he viewed himself as not just a champion of English Romanticism but a advocate of the African diaspora.

This was where parent and child appeared to part ways.

American society evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his compositions as opposed to the his ethnicity.

Family Background

During his studies at the renowned institution, Samuel – the child of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – started to lean into his African roots. When the poet of color Paul Laurence Dunbar came to London in 1897, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He adapted this literary work into music and the next year incorporated his poetry for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, especially with the Black community who felt shared pride as the majority assessed his work by the excellence of his art as opposed to the his background.

Principles and Actions

Fame failed to diminish his activism. At the turn of the century, he attended the First Pan African Conference in England where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual this influential figure and saw a series of speeches, such as the oppression of Black South Africans. He was an activist to his final days. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders including the scholar and this leader, gave addresses on equality for all, and even discussed racial problems with the American leader while visiting to the White House in that year. As for his music, the scholar reflected, “he wrote his name so prominently as a composer that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He succumbed in that year, aged 37. However, how would the composer have reacted to his child’s choice to be in South Africa in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to S African Bias,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. Apartheid “seems to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she did not support with the system “as a concept” and it “could be left to work itself out, directed by benevolent residents of every background”. Were the composer more aligned to her family’s principles, or raised in the US under segregation, she could have hesitated about the policy. Yet her life had shielded her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I have a UK passport,” she said, “and the officials failed to question me about my ethnicity.” Thus, with her “porcelain-white” skin (according to the magazine), she traveled among the Europeans, buoyed up by their praise for her late father. She gave a talk about her father’s music at the educational institution and led the national orchestra in the city, including the inspiring part of her composition, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Although a skilled pianist herself, she avoided playing as the soloist in her concerto. Instead, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

She desired, according to her, she “might bring a transformation”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents discovered her African heritage, she was forced to leave the nation. Her UK document failed to safeguard her, the diplomatic official urged her to go or risk imprisonment. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the extent of her innocence dawned. “This experience was a painful one,” she stated. Compounding her embarrassment was the 1955 publication of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Familiar Story

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I perceived a recurring theme. The account of being British until it’s challenged – which recalls African-descended soldiers who served for the English throughout the World War II and lived only to be not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,