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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually felt the burden of her father’s heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the most famous UK musicians of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s identity was enveloped in the deep shadows of history.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I reflected on these shadows as I made arrangements to record the world premiere recording of Avril’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. Featuring emotional harmonies, soulful lyricism, and confident beats, her composition will provide new listeners fascinating insight into how she – a composer during war born in 1903 – envisioned her reality as a artist with mixed heritage.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about legacies. It can take a while to adjust, to perceive forms as they really are, to separate fact from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to confront Avril’s past for a while.

I earnestly desired her to be her father’s daughter. To some extent, this was true. The pastoral English palettes of her father’s impact can be heard in numerous compositions, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the headings of her father’s compositions to realize how he viewed himself as not only a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition but a advocate of the African heritage.

At this point parent and child seemed to diverge.

The United States judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions instead of the his ethnicity.

Samuel’s African Roots

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, her father – the child of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – started to lean into his heritage. Once the Black American writer this literary figure arrived in England in that era, the 21-year-old composer was keen to meet him. He set the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the subsequent year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, particularly among African Americans who felt shared pride as American society evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his compositions rather than the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not temper his activism. During that period, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in England where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and saw a variety of discussions, covering the oppression of Black South Africans. He remained an advocate until the end. He kept connections with pioneers of civil rights such as Du Bois and the educator Washington, gave addresses on equality for all, and even discussed issues of racism with President Theodore Roosevelt while visiting to the US capital in 1904. Regarding his compositions, the scholar reflected, “he established his reputation so prominently as a composer that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He succumbed in the early 20th century, aged 37. Yet how might Samuel have made of his child’s choice to be in the African nation in the 1950s?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician gives OK to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. When asked to explain, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with apartheid “as a concept” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, guided by well-meaning people of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more aligned to her family’s principles, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about the policy. But life had sheltered her.

Background and Inexperience

“I hold a British passport,” she said, “and the officials did not inquire me about my ethnicity.” Thus, with her “porcelain-white” appearance (as Jet put it), she traveled alongside white society, lifted by their admiration for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and led the national orchestra in the city, including the inspiring part of her Piano Concerto, subtitled: “In remembrance of my Father.” Although a confident pianist personally, she did not perform as the soloist in her concerto. Rather, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra followed her lead.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “could introduce a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. Once officials became aware of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the land. Her British passport offered no defense, the diplomatic official recommended her departure or risk imprisonment. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her innocence was realized. “The realization was a painful one,” she lamented. Adding to her embarrassment was the 1955 publication of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

Upon contemplating with these legacies, I felt a known narrative. The narrative of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – which recalls Black soldiers who served for the UK during the global conflict and survived only to be not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,