Out of the Shadows: The Reasons Avril Coleridge-Taylor Merits to Be Heard

Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually felt the pressure of her father’s legacy. As the daughter of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known UK musicians of the 1900s, her identity was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of history.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I sat with these legacies as I prepared to record the world premiere recording of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Featuring intense musical themes, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, this piece will provide music lovers fascinating insight into how the composer – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her existence as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about shadows. It can take a while to adapt, to see shapes as they really are, to tell reality from misinterpretation, and I felt hesitant to face Avril’s past for some time.

I had so wanted the composer to be her father’s daughter. In some ways, this was true. The rustic British sounds of her father’s impact can be observed in numerous compositions, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the names of her father’s compositions to understand how he identified as not only a champion of English Romanticism but a advocate of the African heritage.

At this point Samuel and Avril began to differ.

American society judged Samuel by the mastery of his art as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

During his studies at the prestigious music college, her father – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – began embracing his background. When the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in that era, the young musician was keen to meet him. He composed the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the following year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral work that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, notably for Black Americans who felt shared pride as white America assessed his work by the quality of his music rather than the his race.

Activism and Politics

Recognition failed to diminish his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he attended the initial Pan African gathering in London where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual WEB Du Bois and witnessed a range of talks, such as the oppression of the Black community there. He was a campaigner to his final days. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders like this intellectual and the educator Washington, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even talked about racial problems with the US President during an invitation to the US capital in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so notably as a composer that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in 1912, in his thirties. But what would her father have thought of his daughter’s decision to work in South Africa in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer shows support to S African Bias,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “struck me as the correct approach”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she backtracked: she did not support with this policy “in principle” and it “ought to be permitted to resolve itself, overseen by benevolent South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more in tune to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in segregated America, she might have thought twice about apartheid. However, existence had shielded her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a English document,” she stated, “and the officials did not inquire me about my race.” Therefore, with her “fair” skin (as Jet put it), she traveled among the Europeans, buoyed up by their admiration for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and led the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in Johannesburg, including the bold final section of her Piano Concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” While a confident pianist on her own, she did not perform as the lead performer in her piece. Rather, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble performed under her direction.

She desired, as she stated, she “could introduce a transformation”. But by 1954, the situation collapsed. After authorities became aware of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the land. Her British passport failed to safeguard her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or risk imprisonment. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the extent of her innocence dawned. “The realization was a hard one,” she stated. Increasing her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these memories, I sensed a recurring theme. The story of holding UK citizenship until you’re not – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who served for the UK during the second world war and made it through but were denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,