Out of the Shadows: Why Avril Coleridge-Taylor Warrants to Be Heard

Avril Coleridge-Taylor always felt the burden of her parent’s heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous British musicians of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s identity was cloaked in the long shadows of the past.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I contemplated these memories as I got ready to make the inaugural album of Avril’s 1936 piano concerto. With its intense musical themes, soulful lyricism, and bold rhythms, Avril’s work will provide new listeners valuable perspective into how this artist – a wartime composer born in 1903 – imagined her world as a artist with mixed heritage.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about the past. One needs patience to adapt, to recognize outlines as they really are, to separate fact from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to confront Avril’s past for a period.

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 several pieces, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the headings of her father’s compositions to understand how he heard himself as not only a champion of UK romantic tradition and also a voice of the Black diaspora.

It was here that father and daughter began to differ.

American society evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his art instead of the his ethnicity.

Samuel’s African Roots

During his studies at the Royal College of Music, her father – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – turned toward his heritage. When the poet of color the renowned Dunbar visited the UK in 1897, the 21-year-old composer eagerly sought him out. He composed the poet’s African Romances to music and the following year adapted his verses for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral work that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, especially with African Americans who felt indirect honor as American society evaluated the composer by the excellence of his art instead of the his race.

Principles and Actions

Success did not reduce his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he was present at the First Pan African Conference in London where he encountered the Black American thinker this influential figure and saw a range of talks, such as the oppression of Black South Africans. He was a campaigner throughout his life. He maintained ties with trailblazers for equality such as the scholar and Booker T Washington, spoke publicly on equality for all, and even talked about racial problems with the US President on a trip to the White House in 1904. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so notably as a composer that it will endure.” He died in the early 20th century, aged 37. However, how would Samuel have reacted to his offspring’s move to be in the African nation in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to apartheid system,” appeared as a heading in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the correct approach”, Avril told Jet. When pushed to clarify, she revised her statement: she didn’t agree with the system “in principle” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, guided by good-intentioned residents of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more in tune to her parent’s beliefs, or from the US under segregation, she may have reconsidered about this system. Yet her life had protected her.

Background and Inexperience

“I possess a UK passport,” she remarked, “and the officials failed to question me about my race.” So, with her “fair” skin (as Jet put it), she floated alongside white society, lifted by their admiration for her renowned family member. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the Cape Town university and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, including the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, titled: “Dedicated to my Father.” While a accomplished player personally, she did not perform as the soloist in her concerto. Rather, she invariably directed as the conductor; and so the apartheid orchestra followed her lead.

She desired, according to her, she “might bring a shift”. But by 1954, things fell apart. After authorities became aware of her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the land. Her citizenship offered no defense, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or be jailed. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the extent of her inexperience dawned. “The lesson was a hard one,” she expressed. Adding to her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her forced leaving from the country.

A Recurring Theme

As I sat with these memories, I felt a familiar story. The narrative of holding UK citizenship until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind troops of color who fought on behalf of the British in the global conflict and made it through but were denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,