Emerging from Darkness: Why Avril Coleridge-Taylor Merits to Be Heard

The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor always experienced the burden of her father’s heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known British musicians of the 1900s, the composer’s name was shrouded in the lingering obscurity of bygone eras.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I contemplated these memories as I prepared to produce the world premiere recording of Avril’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. With its emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and confident beats, Avril’s work will grant music lovers fascinating insight into how this artist – an artist in conflict who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her world as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. It can take a while to adapt, to see shapes as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from distortion, and I was reluctant to face Avril’s past for a period.

I earnestly desired Avril to be a reflection of her father. To some extent, she was. The pastoral English palettes of her father’s impact can be observed in several pieces, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to review the names of her father’s compositions to see how he heard himself as not only a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition and also a representative of the Black diaspora.

This was where parent and child appeared to part ways.

The United States evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his compositions instead of the colour of his skin.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the Royal College of Music, her father – the offspring of a parent from Sierra Leone and a white English mother – turned toward his heritage. When the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in that era, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He adapted this literary work as a composition and the next year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral piece that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, particularly among Black Americans who felt indirect honor as the majority judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions as opposed to the his background.

Activism and Politics

Fame did not temper his activism. At the turn of the century, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in London where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and witnessed a range of talks, such as the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He was an activist to his final days. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders including this intellectual and this leader, gave addresses on ending discrimination, and even engaged in dialogue on issues of racism with President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to the White House in 1904. As for his music, Du Bois recalled, “he established his reputation so high as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He passed away in 1912, in his thirties. Yet how might the composer have thought of his daughter’s decision to be in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to South African policy,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “struck me as the correct approach”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she didn’t agree with the system “as a concept” and it “could be left to work itself out, guided by good-intentioned residents of diverse ethnicities”. Had Avril been more in tune to her parent’s beliefs, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about the policy. Yet her life had shielded her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a English document,” she remarked, “and the government agents never asked me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “fair” appearance (according to the magazine), she traveled within European circles, supported by their admiration for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her father’s music at the educational institution and conducted the broadcasting ensemble in Johannesburg, including the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, named: “Dedicated to my Father.” While a confident pianist herself, she never played as the featured artist in her concerto. Rather, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “may foster a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. Once officials learned of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the nation. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or face arrest. She went back to the UK, feeling great shame as the scale of her innocence was realized. “This experience was a difficult one,” she stated. Adding to her disgrace was the 1955 publication of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from that nation.

A Common Narrative

As I sat with these legacies, I perceived a known narrative. The account of being British until it’s challenged – that brings to mind troops of color who fought on behalf of the English during the World War II and made it through but were refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,