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

Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly experienced the burden of her father’s reputation. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known British artists of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s reputation was shrouded in the lingering obscurity of history.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I contemplated these memories as I prepared to make the inaugural album of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. With its emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, this piece will grant audiences fascinating insight into how this artist – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her reality as a female composer of color.

Legacy and Reality

But here’s the thing about legacies. It requires time to adjust, to see shapes as they actually appear, to tell reality from distortion, and I had been afraid to address Avril’s past for some time.

I earnestly desired her to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, that held. The pastoral English palettes of Samuel’s influence can be observed in numerous compositions, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to review the headings of her family’s music to realize how he heard himself as not only a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition and also a voice of the Black diaspora.

This was where parent and child appeared to part ways.

American society assessed the composer by the brilliance of his art rather than the colour of his skin.

Family Background

During his studies at the renowned institution, her father – the offspring of a parent from Sierra Leone and a white English mother – turned toward his heritage. When the poet of color the renowned Dunbar came to London in 1897, the young musician was keen to meet him. He composed the poet’s African Romances to music and the following year used the poet’s words for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an worldwide sensation, notably for African Americans who felt shared pride as American society judged Samuel by the quality of his music instead of the colour of his skin.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Fame did not temper his beliefs. During that period, he attended the pioneering African conference in the UK where he met the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and witnessed a variety of discussions, including on the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate throughout his life. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders like the scholar and the educator Washington, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even talked about issues of racism with the US President during an invitation to the US capital in 1904. In terms of his art, Du Bois recalled, “he wrote his name so notably as a musician that it will endure.” He passed away in 1912, at 37 years old. But what would Samuel have thought of his child’s choice to be in the African nation in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Offspring of Renowned Musician expresses approval to S African Bias,” declared a title in the community journal Jet magazine. Apartheid “seems to me the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she did not support with the system “fundamentally” and it “ought to be permitted to work itself out, guided by benevolent residents of diverse ethnicities”. Had Avril been more aligned to her parent’s beliefs, or born in segregated America, she could have hesitated about this system. However, existence had shielded her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a UK passport,” she said, “and the authorities failed to question me about my ethnicity.” Thus, with her “porcelain-white” complexion (as described), she traveled alongside white society, lifted by their praise for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, including the heroic third movement of her concerto, titled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Although a accomplished player personally, she never played as the featured artist in her concerto. Rather, she always led as the leader; and so the orchestra of the era performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, according to her, she “might bring a change”. However, by that year, the situation collapsed. Once officials became aware of her mixed background, she had to depart the country. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the scale of her innocence was realized. “The realization was a painful one,” she expressed. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Familiar Story

Upon contemplating with these legacies, I perceived a recurring theme. The narrative of being British until it’s revoked – which recalls troops of color who fought on behalf of the British in the second world war and survived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,