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This talented musician constantly experienced the weight of her father’s legacy. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous British artists of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s name was cloaked in the long shadows of the past.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I contemplated these memories as I got ready to produce the first-ever recording of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. With its emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, her composition will provide audiences fascinating insight into how she – a wartime composer originating from the early 1900s – conceived of her world as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about legacies. It can take a while to adjust, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to separate fact from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to confront her history for a period.

I deeply hoped Avril to be a reflection of her father. Partially, that held. The rustic British sounds of her father’s impact can be heard in several pieces, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the titles of her father’s compositions to realize how he viewed himself as not only a standard-bearer of English Romanticism but a advocate of the Black diaspora.

This was where Samuel and Avril began to differ.

White America assessed the composer by the mastery of his music rather than the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

While he was studying at the Royal College of Music, her father – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – started to lean into his African roots. At the time the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar came to London in 1897, the young musician was keen to meet him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances to music and the following year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, notably for Black Americans who felt shared pride as American society judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions rather than the his race.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Success failed to diminish his beliefs. During that period, he attended the First Pan African Conference in London where he made the acquaintance of the prominent scholar this influential figure and witnessed a variety of discussions, including on the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He was an activist to his final days. He maintained ties with pioneers of civil rights such as Du Bois and the educator Washington, gave addresses on ending discrimination, and even talked about matters of race with the US President while visiting to the US capital in the early 1900s. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so prominently as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He died in 1912, at 37 years old. But what would Samuel have made of his offspring’s move to be in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to S African Bias,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the correct approach”, the composer stated Jet. Upon further questioning, she backtracked: she did not support with the system “fundamentally” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, overseen by benevolent people of all races”. Had Avril been more in tune to her father’s politics, or raised in Jim Crow America, she may have reconsidered about apartheid. However, existence had sheltered her.

Identity and Naivety

“I have a British passport,” she said, “and the government agents failed to question me about my background.” So, with her “fair” skin (according to the magazine), she traveled alongside white society, buoyed up by their acclaim for her deceased parent. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and led the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, including the inspiring part of her concerto, named: “In memory of my Father.” While a accomplished player herself, she did not perform as the lead performer in her work. Instead, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

She desired, in her own words, she “may foster a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, the situation collapsed. When government agents discovered her mixed background, she had to depart the land. Her citizenship offered no defense, the UK representative advised her to leave or face arrest. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her inexperience dawned. “The lesson was a difficult one,” she lamented. Increasing her embarrassment was the printing that year of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her sudden departure from the country.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these shadows, I perceived a recurring theme. The account of holding UK citizenship until you’re not – that brings to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the English throughout the global conflict and lived only to be refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,