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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly bore the burden of her family legacy. As the daughter of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known English musicians of the early 20th century, Avril’s identity was shrouded in the long shadows of the past.

The First Recording

Not long ago, I contemplated these shadows as I got ready to produce the first-ever recording of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. With its emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, Avril’s work will provide audiences fascinating insight into how the composer – an artist in conflict born in 1903 – envisioned her reality as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about the past. One needs patience to acclimate, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to separate fact from misrepresentation, and I was reluctant to confront Avril’s past for a period.

I earnestly desired Avril to be a reflection of her father. Partially, that held. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be heard in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the headings of her family’s music to understand how he viewed himself as both a flag bearer of British Romantic style as well as a voice of the Black diaspora.

It was here that parent and child began to differ.

The United States judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions rather than the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, Samuel – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his African roots. When the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in 1897, the young musician was keen to meet him. He adapted the poet’s African Romances to music and the following year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived 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 worldwide sensation, particularly among African Americans who felt indirect honor as American society judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Success did not temper Samuel’s politics. At the turn of the century, he attended the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he encountered the prominent scholar this influential figure and witnessed a range of talks, including on the mistreatment of the Black community there. He was an activist throughout his life. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders such as this intellectual and Booker T Washington, gave addresses on racial equality, and even talked about issues of racism with the US President while visiting to the US capital in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so prominently as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He died in 1912, in his thirties. Yet how might the composer have made of his child’s choice to be in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Conflict and Policy

“Daughter of Famous Composer gives OK to South African policy,” appeared as a heading in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “seems to me the appropriate course”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with this policy “in principle” and it “could be left to resolve itself, overseen by good-intentioned residents of all races”. Had Avril been more aligned to her father’s politics, or raised in Jim Crow America, she might have thought twice about the policy. However, existence had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I hold a UK passport,” she remarked, “and the government agents did not inquire me about my race.” Therefore, with her “fair” appearance (as described), she traveled among the Europeans, buoyed up by their praise for her late father. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and conducted the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in that location, featuring the heroic third movement of her composition, subtitled: “In remembrance of my Father.” Even though a confident pianist herself, she never played as the lead performer in her concerto. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, in her own words, she “could introduce a change”. However, by that year, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents learned of her mixed background, she could no longer stay the nation. Her citizenship offered no defense, the British high commissioner urged her to go or be jailed. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the extent of her naivety dawned. “This experience was a difficult one,” she stated. Increasing her disgrace was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from that nation.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these memories, I sensed a recurring theme. The narrative of being British until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the UK during the World War II and made it through but were refused rightful benefits. Along with the Windrush era,