Out of Obscurity: The Reasons Avril Coleridge-Taylor Merits to Be Heard

This talented musician always bore the weight of her father’s reputation. As the offspring of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the prominent British artists of the early 20th century, her name was shrouded in the deep shadows of bygone eras.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I contemplated these shadows as I got ready to make the first-ever recording of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Boasting emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, this piece will offer music lovers valuable perspective into how she – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – conceived of her existence as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about shadows. One needs patience to adapt, to see shapes as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from distortion, and I felt hesitant to confront Avril’s past for a while.

I earnestly desired the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, she was. The pastoral English palettes of Samuel’s influence can be observed in several pieces, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to review the titles of her father’s compositions to realize how he identified as not only a champion of British Romantic style as well as a advocate of the African heritage.

At this point parent and child began to differ.

American society evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his compositions as opposed to the his racial background.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – started to lean into his African roots. Once the African American poet the renowned Dunbar visited the UK in the late 19th century, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He set this literary work into music and the following year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral work that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, notably for the Black community who felt indirect honor as white America evaluated the composer by the quality of his music instead of the his race.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Success failed to diminish his beliefs. During that period, he participated in the First Pan African Conference in the UK where he met the prominent scholar this influential figure and saw a range of talks, such as the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He remained an advocate to his final days. He kept connections with pioneers of civil rights including Du Bois and this leader, gave addresses on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on matters of race with the American leader during an invitation to the presidential residence in that year. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so notably as a composer that it will endure.” He succumbed in that year, aged 37. But what would her father have reacted to his offspring’s move to travel to South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Conflict and Policy

“Offspring of Renowned Musician shows support to South African policy,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. Apartheid “seems to me the right policy”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with apartheid “in principle” and it “could be left to work itself out, overseen by benevolent residents of all races”. Were the composer more aligned to her family’s principles, or raised in segregated America, she might have thought twice about the policy. But life had shielded her.

Identity and Naivety

“I have a British passport,” she remarked, “and the government agents failed to question me about my ethnicity.” Therefore, with her “porcelain-white” complexion (as Jet put it), she floated alongside white society, buoyed up by their admiration for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her father’s music at the University of Cape Town and conducted the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in Johannesburg, featuring the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Although a skilled pianist personally, she did not perform as the featured artist in her concerto. Instead, she consistently conducted as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “might bring a shift”. Yet in the mid-1950s, the situation collapsed. After authorities learned of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the country. Her UK document failed to safeguard her, the UK representative urged her to go or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her innocence became clear. “The realization was a difficult one,” she stated. Increasing her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from that nation.

A Recurring Theme

As I sat with these memories, I felt a familiar story. The account of identifying as British until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who fought on behalf of the UK in the global conflict and survived only to be refused rightful benefits. And the Windrush generation,