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This talented musician continually experienced the weight of her parent’s heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the prominent UK musicians of the early 20th century, the composer’s reputation was shrouded in the deep shadows of history.

An Inaugural Recording

Not long ago, I contemplated these legacies as I made arrangements to make the world premiere recording of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. With its intense musical themes, soulful lyricism, and confident beats, this piece will grant music lovers deep understanding into how she – a wartime composer born in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a artist with mixed heritage.

Past and Present

Yet about shadows. It can take a while to adapt, to recognize outlines as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to face her history for a while.

I earnestly desired her to be a reflection of her father. To some extent, she was. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be observed in numerous compositions, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the names of her parent’s works to understand how he identified as both a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition as well as a representative of the African heritage.

This was where parent and child seemed to diverge.

The United States judged Samuel by the brilliance of his music instead of the his ethnicity.

Parental Heritage

While he was studying at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – began embracing his African roots. Once the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the young musician actively pursued him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the next year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an worldwide sensation, notably for the Black community who felt shared pride as American society assessed his work by the quality of his compositions instead of the his race.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Recognition did not reduce Samuel’s politics. During that period, he was present at the pioneering African conference in the UK where he encountered the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and witnessed a series of speeches, covering the oppression of African people in South Africa. He was an activist until the end. He maintained ties with pioneers of civil rights like this intellectual and the educator Washington, gave addresses on ending discrimination, and even discussed issues of racism with the American leader on a trip to the US capital in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so notably as a musician that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in 1912, aged 37. Yet how might the composer have thought of his daughter’s decision to work in the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician gives OK to S African Bias,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the appropriate course”, the composer stated Jet. When asked to explain, she qualified her remarks: she did not support with this policy “in principle” and it “ought to be permitted to work itself out, guided by benevolent South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more attuned to her family’s principles, or from the US under segregation, she may have reconsidered about the policy. But life had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a British passport,” she remarked, “and the officials did not inquire me about my background.” Thus, with her “fair” complexion (as described), she floated among the Europeans, lifted by their admiration for her renowned family member. She presented about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and led the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in that location, featuring the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, named: “In memory of my Father.” While a confident pianist herself, she did not perform as the lead performer in her concerto. Rather, she always led as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “may foster a change”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. After authorities learned of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the nation. Her UK document didn’t protect her, the UK representative urged her to go or face arrest. She returned to England, embarrassed as the magnitude of her innocence dawned. “The realization was a difficult one,” she stated. Adding to her disgrace was the 1955 publication of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her forced leaving from that nation.

A Familiar Story

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I sensed a recurring theme. The narrative of being British until it’s revoked – that brings to mind troops of color who served for the British in the World War II and survived only to be denied their due compensation. Along with the Windrush era,