🔗 Share this article

This talented musician constantly bore the weight of her family heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the prominent British musicians of the early 20th century, her reputation was cloaked in the lingering obscurity of history.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I sat with these shadows as I got ready to make the first-ever recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. With its impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, her composition will provide new listeners fascinating insight into how she – a wartime composer originating from the early 1900s – conceived of her world as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about shadows. One needs patience to adapt, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to tell reality from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to face Avril’s past for a while.

I earnestly desired her to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, this was true. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be detected in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the headings of her parent’s works to understand how he viewed himself as not only a champion of British Romantic style as well as a representative of the Black diaspora.

It was here that Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

The United States assessed the composer by the mastery of his compositions as opposed to the his ethnicity.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the renowned institution, the composer – the offspring of a parent from Sierra Leone and a British mother – began embracing his heritage. At the time the African American poet this literary figure arrived in England in the late 19th century, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He composed this literary work into music and the following year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an international hit, especially with African Americans who felt indirect honor as the majority assessed his work by the excellence of his art as opposed to the his race.

Activism and Politics

Fame did not temper his beliefs. In 1900, he participated in 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, including on the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He was an activist throughout his life. He maintained ties with trailblazers for equality including Du Bois and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on issues of racism with the US President while visiting to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he established his reputation so high as a musician that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in 1912, at 37 years old. However, how would the composer have reacted to his offspring’s move to work in South Africa in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist shows support to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the correct approach”, the composer stated Jet. When pushed to clarify, she qualified her remarks: she did not support with apartheid “fundamentally” and it “could be left to work itself out, guided by benevolent people of all races”. Were the composer more aligned to her parent’s beliefs, or from Jim Crow America, she might have thought twice about this system. Yet her life had shielded her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I hold a UK passport,” she said, “and the government agents did not inquire me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “fair” complexion (as Jet put it), she moved among the Europeans, buoyed up by their acclaim for her late father. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and conducted the national orchestra in the city, programming the heroic third movement of her concerto, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a skilled pianist on her own, she never played as the soloist in her work. Rather, she always led as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “could introduce a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. When government agents learned of her mixed background, she could no longer stay the nation. Her citizenship didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or face arrest. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the scale of her naivety dawned. “The realization was a painful one,” she expressed. Adding to her disgrace was the release in 1955 of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her sudden departure from the country.

A Recurring Theme

While I reflected with these shadows, I perceived a known narrative. The account of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – which recalls troops of color who defended the British in the World War II and survived only to be denied their due compensation. And the Windrush generation,