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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually bore the pressure of her family reputation. As the offspring of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous UK composers of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s reputation was shrouded in the deep shadows of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I sat with these memories as I prepared to make the world premiere recording of the composer’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. Boasting intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and confident beats, this piece will provide audiences valuable perspective into how she – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – envisioned her world as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. It requires time to adjust, to see shapes as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from distortion, and I felt hesitant to confront the composer’s background for a while.

I earnestly desired Avril to be her father’s daughter. In some ways, she was. The pastoral English palettes of parental inspiration can be detected in many of her works, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the headings of her family’s music to realize how he viewed himself as not just a champion of British Romantic style and also a advocate of the African diaspora.

At this point parent and child seemed to diverge.

American society assessed the composer by the mastery of his compositions as opposed to the his ethnicity.

Parental Heritage

During his studies at the prestigious music college, the composer – the child of a parent from Sierra Leone and a Caucasian parent – started to lean into his heritage. When the Black American writer this literary figure visited the UK in the late 19th century, the 21-year-old composer eagerly sought him out. He composed Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the following year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral work that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an worldwide sensation, notably for Black Americans who felt indirect honor as American society judged Samuel by the brilliance of his art rather than the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Recognition did not reduce his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he attended the First Pan African Conference in London where he encountered the African American intellectual this influential figure and saw a series of speeches, such as the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate until the end. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders such as Du Bois and Booker T Washington, delivered his own speeches on ending discrimination, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to the presidential residence in 1904. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so high as a composer that it will endure.” He succumbed in that year, aged 37. But what would her father have made of his daughter’s decision to be in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Daughter of Famous Composer gives OK to South African policy,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “struck me as the right policy”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she didn’t agree with apartheid “as a concept” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, directed by good-intentioned people of all races”. If Avril had been more aligned to her father’s politics, or born in segregated America, she could have hesitated about the policy. However, existence had shielded her.

Background and Inexperience

“I possess a British passport,” she remarked, “and the officials never asked me about my background.” Therefore, with her “fair” appearance (as Jet put it), she traveled alongside white society, buoyed up by their praise for her renowned family member. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and led the national orchestra in the city, featuring the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Although a accomplished player on her own, she did not perform as the lead performer in her concerto. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the orchestra of the era played under her baton.

She desired, as she stated, she “could introduce a change”. But by 1954, the situation collapsed. Once officials became aware of her African heritage, she could no longer stay the land. Her UK document didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official urged her to go or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her innocence dawned. “The realization was a painful one,” she stated. Increasing her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from that nation.

A Recurring Theme

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I perceived a recurring theme. The account of being British until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who served for the British in the second world war and survived only to be not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,