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This talented musician continually bore the weight of her parent’s heritage. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent English composers of the 1900s, her identity was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

Not long ago, I reflected on these memories as I made arrangements to record the inaugural album of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. Featuring emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, Avril’s work will grant new listeners fascinating insight into how the composer – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her world as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

Yet about legacies. It can take a while to adjust, to see shapes as they actually appear, to separate fact from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to confront Avril’s past for some time.

I deeply hoped the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, this was true. The idyllic English tones of Samuel’s influence can be heard in many of her works, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to review the names of her parent’s works to realize how he identified as not just a standard-bearer of English Romanticism but a advocate of the Black diaspora.

At this point Samuel and Avril began to differ.

White America evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his art as opposed to the his ethnicity.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the renowned institution, her father – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – started to lean into his background. Once the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in that era, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He adapted the poet’s African Romances to music and the following year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, particularly among Black Americans who felt shared pride as the majority judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions as opposed to the his background.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not reduce his activism. During that period, he attended the initial Pan African gathering in England where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual this influential figure and saw a variety of discussions, covering the oppression of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate until the end. He maintained ties with pioneers of civil rights like this intellectual and this leader, delivered his own speeches on equality for all, and even talked about matters of race with the US President while visiting to the presidential residence in that year. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he established his reputation so high as a composer that it will long be remembered.” He succumbed in the early 20th century, in his thirties. Yet how might Samuel have thought of his daughter’s decision to be in this country in the that decade?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to S African Bias,” appeared as a heading in the African American magazine Jet magazine. The system “appeared to me the correct approach”, the composer stated Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she didn’t agree with this policy “in principle” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, overseen by benevolent people of every background”. If Avril had been more in tune to her family’s principles, or born in Jim Crow America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. Yet her life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I hold a British passport,” she said, “and the officials failed to question me about my background.” So, with her “light” skin (as described), she floated alongside white society, supported by their praise for her renowned family member. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and conducted the broadcasting ensemble in the city, programming the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” While a skilled pianist on her own, she avoided playing as the lead performer in her concerto. Rather, she always led as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, in her own words, she “might bring a shift”. However, by that year, the situation collapsed. When government agents became aware of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the land. Her UK document didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner recommended her departure or be jailed. She came home, deeply ashamed as the extent of her innocence dawned. “This experience was a painful one,” she stated. Increasing her disgrace was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these memories, I felt a recurring theme. The story of identifying as British until it’s challenged – which recalls Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the English in the global conflict and made it through but were denied their due compensation. Along with the Windrush era,