Avril Coleridge-Taylor always experienced the pressure of her father’s heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the most famous English musicians of the early 20th century, the composer’s identity was enveloped in the long shadows of history.
Not long ago, I reflected on these legacies as I made arrangements to make the inaugural album of Avril’s 1936 piano concerto. With its intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, her composition will grant audiences valuable perspective into how the composer – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – imagined her world as a female composer of color.
But here’s the thing about legacies. It can take a while to adjust, to recognize outlines as they really are, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to confront the composer’s background for a period.
I had so wanted the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. In some ways, this was true. The rustic British sounds of her father’s impact can be heard in many of her works, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to examine the names of her father’s compositions to realize how he viewed himself as both a flag bearer of English Romanticism and also a representative of the African diaspora.
This was where Samuel and Avril began to differ.
American society judged Samuel by the excellence of his art as opposed to the colour of his skin.
As a student at the Royal College of Music, her father – the son of a parent from Sierra Leone and a white English mother – turned toward his background. When the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He adapted this literary work to music and the following year incorporated his poetry for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.
Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an international hit, particularly among the Black community who felt shared pride as American society judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions as opposed to the colour of his skin.
Recognition did not temper his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he attended the First Pan African Conference in the UK where he encountered the prominent scholar the renowned Du Bois and witnessed a series of speeches, covering the subjugation of Black South Africans. He remained an advocate to his final days. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders including this intellectual and this leader, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even discussed matters of race with the US President during an invitation to the White House in that year. As for his music, the scholar reflected, “he established his reputation so notably as a creative artist that it will long be remembered.” He succumbed in that year, aged 37. However, how would Samuel have made of his daughter’s decision to be in the African nation in the that decade?
“Offspring of Renowned Musician expresses approval to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. This policy “seems to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. When pushed to clarify, she backtracked: she didn’t agree with this policy “fundamentally” and it “could be left to run its course, directed by benevolent residents of every background”. Were the composer more aligned to her parent’s beliefs, or born in segregated America, she may have reconsidered about the policy. Yet her life had sheltered her.
“I have a UK passport,” she said, “and the government agents failed to question me about my race.” Therefore, with her “fair” complexion (as Jet put it), she floated among the Europeans, lifted by their praise for her renowned family member. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the Cape Town university and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in that location, programming the bold final section of her composition, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” While a accomplished player on her own, she avoided playing as the lead performer in her work. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.
She desired, as she stated, she “might bring a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. Once officials discovered her African heritage, she was forced to leave the country. Her UK document didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or face arrest. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the extent of her innocence became clear. “The realization was a hard one,” she stated. Increasing her disgrace was the printing that year of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her sudden departure from the country.
Upon contemplating with these memories, I felt a recurring theme. The story of being British until you’re not – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the English in the World War II and made it through but were denied their due compensation. Along with the Windrush era,
A tech enthusiast and gaming aficionado with over a decade of experience in digital media and content creation.
