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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually bore the pressure of her father’s legacy. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the best-known UK composers of the early 20th century, the composer’s reputation was enveloped in the long shadows of bygone eras.

A World Premiere

Not long ago, I contemplated these shadows as I prepared to make the inaugural album of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. Featuring emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, this piece will provide music lovers valuable perspective into how this artist – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – imagined her existence as a female composer of color.

Legacy and Reality

Yet about shadows. It requires time to adjust, to perceive forms as they really are, to tell reality from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to address Avril’s past for some time.

I had so wanted her to be following in her father’s footsteps. In some ways, that held. The rustic British sounds of parental inspiration can be detected in many of her works, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to review the titles of her parent’s works to realize how he identified as not just a standard-bearer of British Romantic style as well as a voice of the African heritage.

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

The United States assessed the composer by the mastery of his compositions instead of the his ethnicity.

Family Background

As a student at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – began embracing his background. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar came to London in the late 19th century, the 21-year-old composer eagerly sought him out. He adapted this literary work to music and the subsequent year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, especially with African Americans who felt vicarious pride as white America evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his music as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Fame did not reduce his activism. In 1900, he attended the pioneering African conference in London where he met the African American intellectual WEB Du Bois and saw a series of speeches, covering the subjugation of Black South Africans. He was an activist until the end. He maintained ties with pioneers of civil rights such as Du Bois and Booker T Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even talked about racial problems with the US President on a trip to the presidential residence in that year. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he established his reputation so high as a creative artist that it will endure.” He died in 1912, at 37 years old. Yet how might her father have made of his child’s choice to travel to this country in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer gives OK to S African Bias,” declared a title in the community journal Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with apartheid “fundamentally” and it “could be left to resolve itself, directed by good-intentioned people of all races”. Had Avril been more attuned to her family’s principles, or raised in segregated America, she may have reconsidered about apartheid. Yet her life had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I possess a British passport,” she remarked, “and the officials never asked me about my race.” Thus, with her “light” complexion (according to the magazine), she moved among the Europeans, lifted by their acclaim for her late father. She presented about her father’s music at the University of Cape Town and led the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in Johannesburg, programming the bold final section of her composition, named: “In memory of my Father.” Although a skilled pianist personally, she avoided playing as the soloist in her piece. Rather, she always led as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

Avril hoped, as she stated, she “might bring a change”. However, by that year, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents learned of her African heritage, she could no longer stay the land. Her British passport failed to safeguard her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the extent of her innocence became clear. “The realization was a difficult one,” she expressed. Increasing her humiliation was the 1955 publication of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her sudden departure from the country.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these legacies, I felt a familiar story. The story of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the UK throughout the World War II and lived only to be refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,