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Avril Coleridge-Taylor always bore the weight of her father’s legacy. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the prominent UK artists of the early 20th century, her identity was enveloped in the deep shadows of the past.

A World Premiere

In recent months, I reflected on these legacies as I got ready to make the inaugural album of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. Boasting emotional harmonies, soulful lyricism, and valiant rhythms, her composition will offer music lovers valuable perspective into how this artist – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – imagined her reality as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about the past. It can take a while to adapt, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to confront the composer’s background for a while.

I earnestly desired her to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, this was true. The pastoral English palettes 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 family’s music to realize how he viewed himself as not only a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition as well as a advocate of the Black diaspora.

At this point father and daughter seemed to diverge.

American society assessed the composer by the brilliance of his compositions instead of the his ethnicity.

Parental Heritage

While he was studying at the Royal College of Music, her father – the child of a African father and a white English mother – started to lean into his background. When the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in 1897, the young musician was keen to meet him. He adapted the poet’s African Romances to music and the following year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral piece that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, especially with African Americans who felt indirect honor as the majority judged Samuel by the excellence of his music instead of the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Success failed to diminish his beliefs. During that period, he attended the pioneering African conference in England where he met the Black American thinker this influential figure and witnessed a range of talks, including on the subjugation of the Black community there. He was an activist to his final days. He maintained ties with pioneers of civil rights including Du Bois and the educator Washington, gave addresses on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the American leader on a trip to the White House in 1904. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so prominently as a creative artist that it will endure.” He died in that year, at 37 years old. However, how would the composer have reacted to his child’s choice to work in this country in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer shows support to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. When pushed to clarify, she backtracked: she didn’t agree with this policy “in principle” and it “should be allowed to run its course, overseen by benevolent residents of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more attuned to her father’s politics, or born in segregated America, she could have hesitated about the policy. But life had sheltered her.

Background and Inexperience

“I possess a English document,” she remarked, “and the government agents never asked me about my race.” Therefore, with her “fair” complexion (as described), she moved among the Europeans, supported by their praise for her late father. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and directed the broadcasting ensemble in that location, featuring the inspiring part of her composition, subtitled: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a accomplished player on her own, she did not perform as the soloist in her concerto. Rather, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

The composer aspired, in her own words, she “might bring a shift”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. Once officials discovered her mixed background, she had to depart the land. Her citizenship offered no defense, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or be jailed. She returned to England, embarrassed as the scale of her naivety became clear. “The realization was a painful one,” she expressed. Adding to her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

As I sat with these legacies, I perceived a familiar story. The account of holding UK citizenship until you’re not – that brings to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the English throughout the second world war and survived only to be refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,