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Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly bore the pressure of her family heritage. As the offspring of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known British musicians of the 1900s, Avril’s name was enveloped in the long shadows of bygone eras.

The First Recording

In recent months, I sat with these shadows as I made arrangements to produce the world premiere recording of the composer’s 1936 piano concerto. With its emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, her composition will offer audiences valuable perspective into how she – a composer during war born in 1903 – conceived of her existence as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about legacies. It requires time to adjust, to see shapes as they actually appear, to tell reality from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to face the composer’s background for a while.

I deeply hoped Avril to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, this was true. The pastoral English palettes of Samuel’s influence can be heard in several pieces, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to review the headings of her parent’s works to understand how he viewed himself as both a champion of English Romanticism and also a advocate of the African diaspora.

It was here that parent and child began to differ.

The United States assessed the composer by the mastery of his compositions rather than the his ethnicity.

Family Background

While he was studying at the renowned institution, the composer – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – began embracing his background. When the African American poet the renowned Dunbar arrived in England in 1897, the 21-year-old composer actively pursued him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances to music and the subsequent year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral piece that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an international hit, notably for the Black community who felt vicarious pride as white America assessed his work by the quality of his compositions as opposed to the his race.

Activism and Politics

Fame did not temper Samuel’s politics. During that period, he attended the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he met the prominent scholar this influential figure and observed a range of talks, including on the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate to his final days. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders like this intellectual and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even talked about matters of race with the US President on a trip to the presidential residence in that year. As for his music, Du Bois recalled, “he made his mark so high as a composer that it will endure.” He passed away in 1912, at 37 years old. But what would her father have made of his offspring’s move to be in the African nation in the 1950s?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist shows support to S African Bias,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she didn’t agree with this policy “as a concept” and it “should be allowed to run its course, guided by well-meaning people of all races”. Had Avril been more aligned to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in the US under segregation, she could have hesitated about the policy. Yet her life had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a English document,” she remarked, “and the officials failed to question me about my race.” So, with her “light” appearance (according to the magazine), she floated alongside white society, supported by their praise for her late father. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and directed the broadcasting ensemble in the city, featuring the bold final section of her concerto, named: “In memory of my Father.” While a skilled pianist personally, she did not perform as the soloist in her work. Rather, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the orchestra of the era performed under her direction.

Avril hoped, in her own words, she “may foster a shift”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents discovered her African heritage, she could no longer stay the land. Her citizenship offered no defense, the UK representative advised her to leave or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the magnitude of her inexperience became clear. “This experience was a painful one,” she lamented. Compounding her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her forced leaving from the country.

A Recurring Theme

Upon contemplating with these memories, I felt a known narrative. The narrative of holding UK citizenship until you’re not – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who fought on behalf of the UK in the second world war and survived only to be refused rightful benefits. And the Windrush generation,