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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor always felt the burden of her family heritage. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous UK musicians of the early 20th century, Avril’s reputation was shrouded in the long shadows of the past.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I contemplated these shadows as I got ready to produce the world premiere recording of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Boasting intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will offer audiences deep understanding into how this artist – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her existence as a artist with mixed heritage.

Legacy and Reality

But here’s the thing about the past. It can take a while to adapt, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to tell reality from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to address Avril’s past for a period.

I had so wanted the composer to be her father’s daughter. In some ways, this was true. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be observed in many of her works, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the names of her father’s compositions to realize how he identified as both a standard-bearer of English Romanticism as well as a voice of the African heritage.

At this point parent and child appeared to part ways.

The United States judged Samuel by the mastery of his art rather than the his racial background.

Family Background

During his studies at the prestigious music college, her father – the child of a African father and a British mother – began embracing his African roots. At the time the poet of color Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in 1897, the young musician actively pursued him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the next year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, especially with Black Americans who felt vicarious pride as white America evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his music instead of the his race.

Activism and Politics

Recognition did not reduce Samuel’s politics. At the turn of the century, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in England where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual WEB Du Bois and observed a range of talks, covering the oppression of African people in South Africa. He was a campaigner to his final days. He maintained ties with trailblazers for equality such as the scholar and Booker T Washington, delivered his own speeches on ending discrimination, and even engaged in dialogue on matters of race with President Theodore Roosevelt while visiting to the US capital in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, Du Bois recalled, “he established his reputation so prominently as a creative artist that it will long be remembered.” He died in the early 20th century, in his thirties. Yet how might the composer have made of his offspring’s move to work in the African nation in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer shows support to South African policy,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she backtracked: she didn’t agree with the system “fundamentally” and it “ought to be permitted to resolve itself, overseen by good-intentioned people of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or born in segregated America, she might have thought twice about this system. But life had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a English document,” she stated, “and the officials failed to question me about my race.” Thus, with her “porcelain-white” skin (as described), she traveled among the Europeans, lifted by their praise for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and conducted the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in Johannesburg, including the inspiring part of her concerto, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Although a accomplished player personally, she avoided playing as the featured artist in her piece. Instead, she always led as the leader; and so the orchestra of the era played under her baton.

She desired, in her own words, she “may foster a change”. However, by that year, the situation collapsed. After authorities learned of her Black ancestry, she was forced to leave the country. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or be jailed. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her inexperience became clear. “The realization was a painful one,” she stated. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

As I sat with these legacies, I perceived a recurring theme. The narrative of being British until you’re not – that brings to mind Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the English in the global conflict and survived only to be denied their due compensation. And the Windrush generation,