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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly bore the burden of her family legacy. Being the child of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent UK composers of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s identity was cloaked in the long shadows of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I contemplated these legacies as I made arrangements to produce the first-ever recording of the composer’s 1936 piano concerto. Featuring impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, Avril’s work will grant new listeners fascinating insight into how the composer – a wartime composer who entered the world in 1903 – conceived of her world as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about shadows. It can take a while to acclimate, to see shapes as they really are, to distinguish truth from distortion, and I was reluctant to face Avril’s past for a period.

I deeply hoped the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, she was. The pastoral English palettes of her father’s impact can be detected in many of her works, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the titles of her parent’s works to realize how he identified as not just a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition but a voice of the African heritage.

At this point Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

The United States judged Samuel by the mastery of his compositions instead of the his racial background.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the prestigious music college, her father – the child of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – turned toward his heritage. At the time the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in 1897, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances to music and the subsequent year used the poet’s words for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, notably for Black Americans who felt indirect honor as American society assessed his work by the quality of his music rather than the his race.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Fame failed to diminish his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he attended the pioneering African conference in London where he met the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and witnessed a series of speeches, such as the mistreatment of the Black community there. He remained an advocate until the end. He sustained relationships with trailblazers for equality including this intellectual and this leader, delivered his own speeches on equality for all, and even discussed issues of racism with the American leader while visiting to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so notably as a musician that it will endure.” He succumbed in 1912, in his thirties. Yet how might Samuel have reacted to his child’s choice to be in this country in the mid-20th century?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist shows support to apartheid system,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the correct approach”, Avril told Jet. When asked to explain, she revised her statement: she didn’t agree with apartheid “as a concept” and it “could be left to resolve itself, directed by good-intentioned South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. Had Avril been more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or born in Jim Crow America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. Yet her life had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a UK passport,” she said, “and the authorities failed to question me about my background.” Therefore, with her “fair” appearance (according to the magazine), she floated within European circles, buoyed up by their acclaim for her late father. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and led the national orchestra in the city, programming the bold final section of her composition, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Although a skilled pianist on her own, she did not perform as the soloist in her concerto. Rather, she always led as the conductor; and so the orchestra of the era followed her lead.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “could introduce a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. When government agents learned of her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the nation. Her citizenship offered no defense, the UK representative urged her to go or face arrest. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the extent of her naivety was realized. “The lesson was a difficult one,” she expressed. Increasing her disgrace was the 1955 publication of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her sudden departure from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these shadows, I sensed a familiar story. The story of identifying as British until it’s challenged – that brings to mind troops of color who defended the UK during the global conflict and made it through but were refused rightful benefits. Along with the Windrush era,