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This talented musician constantly bore the pressure of her parent’s legacy. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent British composers of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s reputation was shrouded in the long shadows of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

Not long ago, I contemplated these memories as I prepared to make the first-ever recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. With its impassioned harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, Avril’s work will provide music lovers fascinating insight into how she – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a female composer of color.

Legacy and Reality

Yet about the past. It can take a while to adapt, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to confront the composer’s background for some time.

I deeply hoped Avril to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, she was. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be observed in several pieces, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to examine the headings of her father’s compositions to realize how he heard himself as not just a standard-bearer of English Romanticism as well as a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that Samuel and Avril seemed to diverge.

American society evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his art instead of the colour of his skin.

Family Background

During his studies at the prestigious music college, the composer – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – turned toward his background. Once the poet of color this literary figure visited the UK in 1897, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He adapted the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the subsequent year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral work that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an worldwide sensation, notably for African Americans who felt shared pride as the majority assessed his work by the excellence of his music instead of the his background.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Recognition failed to diminish Samuel’s politics. In 1900, he participated in the First Pan African Conference in England where he encountered the African American intellectual WEB Du Bois and witnessed a range of talks, including on the subjugation of Black South Africans. He was a campaigner until the end. He kept connections with pioneers of civil rights such as the scholar and this leader, spoke publicly on racial equality, and even discussed matters of race with the US President during an invitation to the presidential residence in that year. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so prominently as a composer that it will long be remembered.” He succumbed in that year, at 37 years old. Yet how might the composer have made of his offspring’s move to be in the African nation in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to apartheid system,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the correct approach”, Avril told Jet. When pushed to clarify, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with apartheid “in principle” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, guided by good-intentioned people of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more aligned to her family’s principles, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about the policy. Yet her life had shielded her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a British passport,” she remarked, “and the authorities never asked me about my ethnicity.” Therefore, with her “porcelain-white” complexion (as described), she floated among the Europeans, buoyed up by their praise for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her father’s music at the University of Cape Town and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in that location, programming the heroic third movement of her concerto, named: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a confident pianist on her own, she never played as the soloist in her concerto. Instead, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble played under her baton.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “may foster a change”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. Once officials became aware of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the country. Her UK document didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or be jailed. She returned to England, feeling great shame as the scale of her naivety was realized. “This experience was a difficult one,” she lamented. Compounding her humiliation was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these memories, I perceived a recurring theme. The narrative of being British until you’re not – that brings to mind troops of color who served for the British in the global conflict and lived only to be not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,