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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually felt the pressure of her father’s reputation. As the offspring of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent English artists of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s reputation was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of history.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I reflected on these legacies as I got ready to produce the inaugural album of Avril’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. Featuring intense musical themes, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will grant music lovers valuable perspective into how the composer – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her existence as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. It requires time to acclimate, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I was reluctant to face the composer’s background for a while.

I deeply hoped Avril to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, that held. The pastoral English palettes of Samuel’s influence can be observed in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to look at the titles of her family’s music to understand how he identified as not only a flag bearer of English Romanticism as well as a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that parent and child began to differ.

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

Parental Heritage

As a student at the Royal College of Music, the composer – the offspring of a parent from Sierra Leone and a white English mother – started to lean into his African roots. Once the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in 1897, the 21-year-old composer was keen to meet him. He adapted this literary work into music and the next year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral work that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, especially with Black Americans who felt shared pride as American society assessed his work by the quality of his compositions rather than the his race.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Recognition failed to diminish his beliefs. In 1900, he participated in the First Pan African Conference in London where he encountered the African American intellectual this influential figure and saw a range of talks, including on the oppression of the Black community there. He remained an advocate throughout his life. He maintained ties with trailblazers for equality such as this intellectual and this leader, gave addresses on equality for all, and even discussed racial problems with the American leader on a trip to the presidential residence in 1904. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he established his reputation so high as a composer that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He died in the early 20th century, aged 37. However, how would the composer have thought of his child’s choice to be in this country in the 1950s?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. This policy “seems to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she revised her statement: she didn’t agree with this policy “as a concept” and it “could be left to run its course, overseen by well-meaning South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more attuned to her father’s politics, or from the US under segregation, she may have reconsidered about this system. But life had sheltered her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a British passport,” she said, “and the officials failed to question me about my background.” Thus, with her “fair” skin (as described), she moved within European circles, buoyed up by their praise for her deceased parent. She presented about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and conducted the national orchestra in the city, including the bold final section of her concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Even though a confident pianist personally, she did not perform as the soloist in her concerto. Instead, she always led as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “could introduce a shift”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. After authorities discovered her Black ancestry, she was forced to leave the country. Her citizenship didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official recommended her departure or face arrest. She came home, feeling great shame as the scale of her naivety was realized. “The lesson was a hard one,” she expressed. Adding to her embarrassment was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these memories, I perceived a recurring theme. The account of identifying as British until you’re not – which recalls Black soldiers who defended the British in the World War II and survived only to be denied their due compensation. And the Windrush generation,