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

Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the burden of her parent’s legacy. As the offspring of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the prominent British composers of the turn of the 20th century, her identity was enveloped in the long shadows of history.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I reflected on these shadows as I made arrangements to make the inaugural album of Avril’s 1936 piano concerto. Featuring intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will offer new listeners valuable perspective into how the composer – a wartime composer born in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

Yet about the past. It requires time to adjust, to see shapes as they really are, to separate fact from misinterpretation, and I felt hesitant to address Avril’s past for a period.

I had so wanted her to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, that held. The rustic British sounds of parental inspiration can be detected in several pieces, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the names of her parent’s works to realize how he viewed himself as not just a standard-bearer of English Romanticism and also a representative of the African diaspora.

This was where father and daughter began to differ.

The United States judged Samuel by the brilliance of his music as opposed to the his racial background.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the renowned institution, the composer – the offspring of a African father and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his background. Once the poet of color the renowned Dunbar arrived in England in 1897, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He adapted the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the following year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an worldwide sensation, notably for the Black community who felt shared pride as the majority assessed his work by the excellence of his music instead of the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Success did not reduce Samuel’s politics. During that period, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in London where he met the Black American thinker WEB Du Bois and witnessed a range of talks, including on the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He was a campaigner until the end. He sustained relationships with pioneers of civil rights like Du Bois and Booker T Washington, spoke publicly on racial equality, and even discussed matters of race with the US President during an invitation to the presidential residence in that year. Regarding his compositions, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so notably as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in that year, 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?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist shows support to South African policy,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “struck me as the correct approach”, the composer stated Jet. When pushed to clarify, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with the system “in principle” and it “ought to be permitted to work itself out, directed by good-intentioned people of every background”. Had Avril been more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about the policy. But life had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I possess a English document,” she remarked, “and the government agents did not inquire me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “porcelain-white” appearance (as described), she moved among the Europeans, supported by their praise for her deceased parent. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and conducted the broadcasting ensemble in Johannesburg, programming the bold final section of her composition, named: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a skilled pianist on her own, she never played as the lead performer in her work. Instead, she consistently conducted as the conductor; and so the apartheid orchestra followed her lead.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “might bring a change”. However, by that year, things fell apart. Once officials became aware of her Black ancestry, she was forced to leave the nation. Her citizenship failed to safeguard her, the UK representative urged her to go or be jailed. She returned to England, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her inexperience was realized. “This experience was a painful one,” she expressed. Compounding her humiliation was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these shadows, I felt a known narrative. The account of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the UK in the global conflict and lived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,