A. Kori Hill
Did you know that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s daughter, Avril, was also a composer and a conductor? If you didn’t, no worries; even some of us adults are just now learning about this! Here’s a little info about the music and career of Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903–1998).
She was born Gwendolen Avril in South Norwood, London. Her older brother was named Hiawatha, after the character in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem her father set to music. Avril grew up surrounded by music; she would sometimes sit with her father while he was composing, even writing down some of her ideas when he passed her a sheet of manuscript paper!
She wrote her first composition when she was 12 and won a scholarship to Trinity College of Music, where she studied composition, piano, and conducting. She got married in 1924, and for the first portion of her career was known professionally as Gwendolen Coleridge-Taylor. After her divorce in the 1930s, she decided to go by her middle name, Avril, and was known as Avril Coleridge-Taylor for the rest of her career.
In 1933, she made her conducting debut at the Royal Albert Hall. She would often guest conduct the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became the first female conductor of the H.M. Royal Marines. She also established several ensembles: the Coleridge-Taylor Symphony Orchestra, named after her father, in 1941; the Malcolm Sargent Symphony Orchestra, and the New World Singers as well.
In 1954, during the start of a tour in apartheid South Africa, Avril didn’t share the fact that her father was a biracial Black British man, which allowed her to pass for white. When government officials learned that she was part Black, she was no longer allowed to work as a composer or conductor, due to the racist policy of apartheid.
But Avril kept working; she arranged and conducted BBC radio’s performance of the 1930 play The Green Pastures, and in 1957, she composed Ceremonial March for Ghana’s independence from Great Britain. In 1979, she published a biography about her father, The Heritage of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, which also featured biographical details about her own life.
Avril is best known for her large-scale orchestral works, but she also wrote songs and pieces for keyboard and chamber ensembles. Some of her orchestral works were recently recorded by Dr. Samantha Ege and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, including her Piano Concerto in F minor (1936, rev. 1970 and 1973), To April: Poem for Orchestra, Op. 15 (1930–31), Sussex Landscape, Op. 27 (1940), In memoriam: To the RAF (1945), and Comet Prelude (1952–1953).
Chineke! Junior Orchestra also recorded Sussex Landscape; take a listen to the Chineke! version and the BBC Phil version. How do they approach dynamics and phrasing? What about tempo? Are certain sections of the orchestra more prominent in one version versus the other? Is there an interpretation you like better? Write through your reasons why.
