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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the weight of her father’s heritage. As the offspring of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the most famous English musicians of the early 20th century, Avril’s reputation was cloaked in the deep shadows of history.

The First Recording

Not long ago, I contemplated these shadows as I made arrangements to record the world premiere recording of her 1936 piano concerto. With its intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and confident beats, her composition will provide music lovers deep understanding into how this artist – a wartime composer born in 1903 – conceived of her world as a artist with mixed heritage.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about the past. One needs patience to adjust, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from distortion, and I had been afraid to confront Avril’s past for some time.

I earnestly desired the composer to be a reflection of her father. Partially, this was true. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be detected in several pieces, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to examine the names of her family’s music to realize how he heard himself as not just a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition but a representative of the African heritage.

At this point father and daughter seemed to diverge.

American society evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his compositions rather than the his ethnicity.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the Royal College of Music, the composer – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – turned toward his heritage. When the poet of color Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in 1897, the young musician was keen to meet him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the next year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an worldwide sensation, especially with the Black community who felt shared pride as white America assessed his work by the excellence of his music as opposed to the his race.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Fame did not temper his activism. At the turn of the century, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he met the Black American thinker the renowned Du Bois and saw a variety of discussions, including on the subjugation of Black South Africans. He was a campaigner until the end. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders such as Du Bois and this leader, delivered his own speeches on equality for all, and even discussed racial problems with President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. Regarding his compositions, the scholar reflected, “he established his reputation so high as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He passed away in 1912, aged 37. Yet how might Samuel have thought of his child’s choice to work in South Africa in the 1950s?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to South African policy,” declared a title in the African American magazine Jet magazine. The system “struck me as the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with apartheid “as a concept” and it “could be left to work itself out, overseen by benevolent South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more aligned to her family’s principles, or from Jim Crow America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. Yet her life had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I have a English document,” she said, “and the government agents failed to question me about my background.” Therefore, with her “light” complexion (as described), she moved among the Europeans, supported by their acclaim for her renowned family member. She gave a talk about her father’s music at the University of Cape Town and directed the national orchestra in that location, programming the inspiring part of her Piano Concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Even though a skilled pianist herself, she did not perform as the featured artist in her concerto. Instead, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

Avril hoped, in her own words, she “might bring a change”. But by 1954, things fell apart. After authorities learned of her mixed background, she was forced to leave the nation. Her British passport offered no defense, the British high commissioner urged her to go or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her inexperience was realized. “This experience was a painful one,” she lamented. Adding to her humiliation was the 1955 publication of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

As I sat with these memories, I felt a known narrative. The narrative of holding UK citizenship until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the British during the second world war and survived only to be refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,