This talented musician always experienced the pressure of her family heritage. Being the child of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the most famous British composers of the early 20th century, her identity was enveloped in the long shadows of bygone eras.
A World Premiere
Earlier this year, I contemplated these memories as I prepared to produce the first-ever recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. With its intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and confident beats, this piece will offer audiences fascinating insight into how this artist – a composer during war born in 1903 – envisioned her existence as a woman of colour.
Past and Present
But here’s the thing about legacies. It can take a while to acclimate, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to separate fact from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to confront Avril’s past for some time.
I deeply hoped Avril to be a reflection of her father. To some extent, she was. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be observed in many of her works, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the headings of her father’s compositions to see how he heard himself as both a champion of UK romantic tradition as well as a voice of the African diaspora.
At this point parent and child began to differ.
The United States evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his art instead of the his racial background.
Family Background
While he was studying at the renowned institution, her father – the offspring of a parent from Sierra Leone and a white English mother – started to lean into his African roots. At the time the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar came to London in that era, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He adapted this literary work to music and the subsequent year used the poet’s words for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral composition that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.
Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, particularly among Black Americans who felt indirect honor as American society assessed his work by the quality of his compositions rather than the his race.
Activism and Politics
Fame failed to diminish his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in England where he encountered the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and witnessed a series of speeches, such as the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He was an activist until the end. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders including Du Bois and Booker T Washington, delivered his own speeches on ending discrimination, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the US President during an invitation to the White House in 1904. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so notably as a composer that it will long be remembered.” He died in 1912, aged 37. Yet how might Samuel have reacted to his child’s choice to be in this country in the that decade?
Issues and Stance
“Offspring of Renowned Musician shows support to South African policy,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. The system “struck me as the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. When pushed to clarify, she backtracked: she did not support with the system “fundamentally” and it “could be left to resolve itself, directed by benevolent residents of all races”. If Avril had been more in tune to her father’s politics, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about the policy. However, existence had protected her.
Identity and Naivety
“I possess a English document,” she remarked, “and the government agents failed to question me about my race.” So, with her “porcelain-white” complexion (as Jet put it), she moved within European circles, supported by their acclaim for her late father. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the Cape Town university and conducted the national orchestra in Johannesburg, programming the inspiring part of her concerto, named: “In remembrance of my Father.” Although a confident pianist on her own, she never played as the soloist in her concerto. Instead, she always led as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.
Avril hoped, as she stated, she “may foster a shift”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. After authorities became aware of her Black ancestry, she was forced to leave the country. Her citizenship didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official recommended her departure or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the extent of her naivety dawned. “The lesson was a painful one,” she lamented. Adding to her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.
A Common Narrative
Upon contemplating with these legacies, I sensed a known narrative. The account of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – which recalls African-descended soldiers who defended the British throughout the global conflict and survived only to be not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,
