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Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly experienced the pressure of her family heritage. As the daughter of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the most famous English composers of the early 20th century, the composer’s identity was cloaked in the deep shadows of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I contemplated these shadows as I made arrangements to produce the first-ever recording of her piano concerto from 1936. Boasting impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and bold rhythms, her composition will grant new listeners deep understanding into how she – a wartime composer who entered the world in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. It requires time to acclimate, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to separate fact from distortion, and I felt hesitant to confront her history for some time.

I earnestly desired Avril to be her father’s daughter. In some ways, that held. The rustic British sounds of parental inspiration can be detected in numerous compositions, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the headings of her family’s music to see how he heard himself as not only a standard-bearer of English Romanticism but a voice of the African heritage.

This was where father and daughter seemed to diverge.

American society assessed the composer by the excellence of his art as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Samuel’s African Roots

During his studies at the prestigious music college, her father – the son of a parent from Sierra Leone and a British mother – turned toward his African roots. When the African American poet this literary figure visited the UK in that era, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He composed this literary work to music and the next year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral work that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an worldwide sensation, notably for the Black community who felt shared pride as the majority judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions instead of the his race.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not reduce his activism. At the turn of the century, he was present at the pioneering African conference in London where he met the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and witnessed a variety of discussions, including on the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He was a campaigner to his final days. He sustained relationships with trailblazers for equality like Du Bois and the educator Washington, gave addresses on equality for all, and even discussed matters of race with the US President on a trip to the US capital in 1904. In terms of his art, Du Bois recalled, “he made his mark so notably as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in 1912, in his thirties. Yet how might her father have reacted to his offspring’s move to work in the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. The system “struck me as the appropriate course”, the composer stated Jet. When asked to explain, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with apartheid “as a concept” and it “ought to be permitted to resolve itself, overseen by benevolent residents of all races”. Had Avril been more in tune to her parent’s beliefs, or from Jim Crow America, she may have reconsidered about this system. However, existence had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I possess a British passport,” she remarked, “and the authorities did not inquire me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “porcelain-white” skin (as Jet put it), she floated among the Europeans, lifted by their praise for her renowned family member. She presented about her father’s music at the University of Cape Town and directed the broadcasting ensemble in that location, featuring the heroic third movement of her composition, named: “In memory of my Father.” Even though a skilled pianist on her own, she never played as the soloist in her work. Rather, she always led as the conductor; and so the orchestra of the era played under her baton.

The composer aspired, according to her, she “may foster a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. Once officials learned of her African heritage, she had to depart the country. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official urged her to go or face arrest. She came home, feeling great shame as the extent of her innocence dawned. “The lesson was a painful one,” she stated. Adding to her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Familiar Story

Upon contemplating with these memories, I felt a recurring theme. The account of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – that brings to mind Black soldiers who defended the British during the global conflict and made it through but were denied their due compensation. Along with the Windrush era,