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This talented musician continually experienced the burden of her family legacy. As the daughter of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the prominent UK artists of the 1900s, her name was shrouded in the deep shadows of bygone eras.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I sat with these shadows as I made arrangements to make the world premiere recording of the composer’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. With its impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, this piece will provide new listeners fascinating insight into how the composer – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – conceived of her reality as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

Yet about the past. It requires time to adapt, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to confront Avril’s past for some time.

I earnestly desired the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. In some ways, that held. The idyllic English tones of Samuel’s influence can be detected in several pieces, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the headings of her family’s music to see how he identified as not only a champion of English Romanticism and also a representative of the African diaspora.

It was here that Samuel and Avril seemed to diverge.

White America judged Samuel by the mastery of his music as opposed to the his racial background.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the prestigious music college, Samuel – the offspring of a parent from Sierra Leone and a British mother – turned toward his heritage. Once the poet of color the renowned Dunbar arrived in England in the late 19th century, the young musician was keen to meet him. He set this literary work into music and the subsequent year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral piece that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an worldwide sensation, particularly among African Americans who felt shared pride as white America assessed his work by the excellence of his art as opposed to the his background.

Activism and Politics

Recognition did not reduce Samuel’s politics. During that period, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in England where he encountered the Black American thinker the renowned Du Bois and saw a series of speeches, including on the mistreatment of the Black community there. He was an activist until the end. He kept connections with pioneers of civil rights including the scholar and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even discussed matters of race with President Theodore Roosevelt while visiting to the US capital in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so notably as a creative artist that it will long be remembered.” He died in that year, at 37 years old. But what would her father have made of his child’s choice to travel to the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to S African Bias,” appeared as a heading in the community journal Jet magazine. This policy “seems to me the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. When pushed to clarify, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with apartheid “in principle” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, directed by benevolent people of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more in tune to her family’s principles, or born in Jim Crow America, she might have thought twice about apartheid. However, existence had shielded her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a British passport,” she stated, “and the government agents failed to question me about my ethnicity.” Thus, with her “porcelain-white” skin (according to the magazine), she traveled within European circles, buoyed up by their acclaim for her deceased parent. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and conducted the broadcasting ensemble in the city, featuring the bold final section of her composition, named: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a accomplished player personally, she did not perform as the featured artist in her work. Instead, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

She desired, according to her, she “could introduce a transformation”. But by 1954, the situation collapsed. After authorities discovered her mixed background, she was forced to leave the land. Her citizenship didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner recommended her departure or be jailed. She came home, feeling great shame as the scale of her naivety became clear. “The lesson was a hard one,” she expressed. Compounding her disgrace was the 1955 publication of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her forced leaving from that nation.

A Recurring Theme

As I sat with these shadows, I sensed a known narrative. The narrative of identifying as British until you’re not – that brings to mind Black soldiers who served for the British in the World War II and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,