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This talented musician continually felt the pressure of her family reputation. As the offspring of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the prominent UK artists of the early 20th century, the composer’s name was shrouded in the deep shadows of bygone eras.

An Inaugural Recording

Not long ago, I contemplated these memories as I made arrangements to record the first-ever recording of Avril’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. Boasting impassioned harmonies, soulful lyricism, and valiant rhythms, this piece will offer new listeners fascinating insight into how the composer – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – imagined her existence as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about legacies. It can take a while to acclimate, to see shapes as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to confront the composer’s background for some time.

I had so wanted Avril to be following in her father’s footsteps. In some ways, she was. The idyllic English tones of Samuel’s influence can be detected in numerous compositions, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the names of her parent’s works to understand how he heard himself as not only a flag bearer of English Romanticism but a representative of the African heritage.

It was here that Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

American society evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his compositions instead of the his ethnicity.

Parental Heritage

During his studies at the prestigious music college, Samuel – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – turned toward his background. Once the African American poet the renowned Dunbar arrived in England in 1897, the young musician was keen to meet him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the following year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, especially with the Black community who felt indirect honor as the majority judged Samuel by the brilliance of his music as opposed to the his race.

Principles and Actions

Fame failed to diminish Samuel’s politics. During that period, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in London where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual WEB Du Bois and witnessed a range of talks, such as the subjugation of Black South Africans. He was an activist throughout his life. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders including Du Bois and this leader, spoke publicly on racial equality, and even discussed racial problems with the American leader on a trip to the US capital in that year. Regarding his compositions, Du Bois recalled, “he made his mark so prominently as a musician that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He succumbed in 1912, aged 37. But what would the composer have reacted to his offspring’s move to work in this country in the 1950s?

Conflict and Policy

“Daughter of Famous Composer shows support to apartheid system,” appeared as a heading in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “struck me as the right policy”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she did not support with this policy “as a concept” and it “should be allowed to run its course, guided by benevolent South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. Had Avril been more in tune to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in the US under segregation, she might have thought twice about this system. Yet her life had protected her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a British passport,” she stated, “and the government agents never asked me about my ethnicity.” Therefore, with her “porcelain-white” appearance (as Jet put it), she moved among the Europeans, supported by their praise for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and conducted the national orchestra in Johannesburg, featuring the bold final section of her composition, subtitled: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a accomplished player herself, she never played as the featured artist in her piece. On the contrary, she consistently conducted as the conductor; and so the orchestra of the era performed under her direction.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “may foster a shift”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. After authorities learned of her mixed background, she was forced to leave the land. Her citizenship didn’t protect her, the UK representative advised her to leave or be jailed. She came home, deeply ashamed as the scale of her naivety dawned. “This experience was a painful one,” she stated. Compounding her disgrace was the 1955 publication of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

As I sat with these memories, I sensed a known narrative. The story of identifying as British until you’re not – which recalls Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the British in the World War II and lived only to be not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,