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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the burden of her family legacy. As the offspring of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the prominent UK musicians of the turn of the 20th century, her name was shrouded in the deep shadows of history.

The First Recording

Not long ago, I sat with these legacies as I got ready to record the first-ever recording of the composer’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. With its impassioned harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, Avril’s work will provide new listeners fascinating insight into how the composer – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – conceived of her existence as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

However about legacies. It requires time to adapt, to see shapes as they really are, to separate fact from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to confront Avril’s past for some time.

I deeply hoped her to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, this was true. The idyllic English tones of Samuel’s influence can be detected in several pieces, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the headings of her father’s compositions to realize how he heard himself as not just a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition but a advocate of the African diaspora.

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

American society judged Samuel by the brilliance of his music instead of the his ethnicity.

Family Background

While he was studying at the renowned institution, her father – the son of a African father and a white English mother – turned toward his background. Once the poet of color this literary figure arrived in England in the late 19th century, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He adapted this literary work to music and the subsequent year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral composition that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an international hit, notably for Black Americans who felt vicarious pride as American society judged Samuel by the excellence of his music instead of the his race.

Principles and Actions

Fame failed to diminish his beliefs. In 1900, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in England where he encountered the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and observed a range of talks, such as the subjugation of African people in South Africa. He was a campaigner until the end. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders including the scholar and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on matters of race with the US President during an invitation to the White House in the early 1900s. As for his music, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so prominently as a musician that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He died in 1912, in his thirties. Yet how might her father have made of his child’s choice to be in the African nation in the 1950s?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer shows support to apartheid system,” declared a title in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the right policy”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with apartheid “fundamentally” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, guided by benevolent South Africans of all races”. Were the composer more aligned to her family’s principles, or born in segregated America, she might have thought twice about the policy. Yet her life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a English document,” she stated, “and the officials never asked me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “light” appearance (as Jet put it), she moved among the Europeans, supported by their praise for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in Johannesburg, including the inspiring part of her Piano Concerto, titled: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a confident pianist herself, she never played as the featured artist in her concerto. Instead, she invariably directed as the conductor; and so the segregated ensemble performed under her direction.

Avril hoped, in her own words, she “may foster a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, the situation collapsed. Once officials discovered her mixed background, she was forced to leave the nation. Her British passport failed to safeguard her, the British high commissioner recommended her departure or be jailed. She came home, deeply ashamed as the scale of her inexperience dawned. “The realization was a painful one,” she lamented. Compounding her embarrassment was the 1955 publication of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

As I sat with these shadows, I sensed a familiar story. The narrative of identifying as British until it’s challenged – that brings to mind Black soldiers who defended the British in the global conflict and survived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,