🔗 Share this article

This talented musician always bore the weight of her father’s legacy. As the daughter of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known UK composers of the 1900s, Avril’s reputation was shrouded in the deep shadows of history.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I contemplated these legacies as I got ready to record the inaugural album of the composer’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. With its impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and bold rhythms, Avril’s work will offer new listeners deep understanding into how the composer – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her world as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about legacies. One needs patience to acclimate, to see shapes as they actually appear, to tell reality from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to face Avril’s past for a while.

I earnestly desired Avril to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, that held. The rustic British sounds of parental inspiration can be observed in several pieces, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the titles of her parent’s works to understand how he identified as not only a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition but a representative of the African diaspora.

At this point Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

White America judged Samuel by the mastery of his compositions as opposed to the his racial background.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the renowned institution, her father – the child of a African father and a Caucasian parent – turned toward his background. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar visited the UK in the late 19th century, the young musician actively pursued him. He composed this literary work into music and the following year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, notably for Black Americans who felt shared pride as the majority assessed his work by the quality of his compositions as opposed to the his background.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Fame did not reduce Samuel’s politics. At the turn of the century, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in London where he met the prominent scholar this influential figure and saw a series of speeches, covering the subjugation of the Black community there. He was an activist to his final days. He maintained ties with pioneers of civil rights such as Du Bois and this leader, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even talked about issues of racism with President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to the US capital in that year. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so prominently as a creative artist that it will endure.” He succumbed in that year, aged 37. But what would Samuel have thought of his child’s choice to work in this country in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to S African Bias,” declared a title in the African American magazine Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the right policy”, Avril told Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she didn’t agree with the system “in principle” and it “ought to be permitted to work itself out, directed by good-intentioned residents of all races”. Had Avril been more attuned to her father’s politics, or raised in the US under segregation, she could have hesitated about the policy. However, existence had shielded her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a English document,” she stated, “and the government agents never asked me about my race.” So, with her “porcelain-white” skin (as described), she floated within European circles, lifted by their acclaim for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her father’s music at the educational institution and conducted the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, featuring the inspiring part of her composition, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Although a skilled pianist herself, she never played as the featured artist in her work. Rather, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble played under her baton.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “could introduce a change”. Yet in the mid-1950s, the situation collapsed. Once officials became aware of her mixed background, she was forced to leave the country. Her citizenship failed to safeguard her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or be jailed. She came home, feeling great shame as the extent of her naivety was realized. “The realization was a difficult one,” she lamented. Increasing her disgrace was the 1955 publication of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

As I sat with these legacies, I perceived a familiar story. The story of identifying as British until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who defended the British during the global conflict and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,