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This talented musician continually bore the weight of her parent’s heritage. As the daughter of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the prominent UK composers of the turn of the 20th century, her reputation was cloaked in the deep shadows of history.

The First Recording

Not long ago, I contemplated these legacies as I made arrangements to record the world premiere recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. Featuring emotional harmonies, soulful lyricism, and valiant rhythms, this piece will offer new listeners valuable perspective into how she – a composer during war born in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. It can take a while to acclimate, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to tell reality from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to address Avril’s past for a period.

I deeply hoped the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, that held. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be observed in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to look at the titles of her family’s music to see how he identified as both a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition but a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that father and daughter began to differ.

The United States evaluated Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions as opposed to the his racial background.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the renowned institution, her father – the child of a African father and a Caucasian parent – turned toward his heritage. Once the poet of color Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in 1897, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He adapted this literary work as a composition and the following year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, notably for the Black community who felt vicarious pride as American society evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his art as opposed to the his background.

Activism and Politics

Recognition failed to diminish Samuel’s politics. During that period, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he encountered the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and witnessed a variety of discussions, such as the mistreatment of the Black community there. He was a campaigner to his final days. He sustained relationships with trailblazers for equality like Du Bois and Booker T Washington, gave addresses on ending discrimination, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the US President on a trip to the US capital in the early 1900s. As for his music, Du Bois recalled, “he made his mark so high as a composer that it will endure.” He succumbed in the early 20th century, aged 37. But what would Samuel have made of his daughter’s decision to work in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Conflict and Policy

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to apartheid system,” declared a title in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “appeared to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she did not support with the system “fundamentally” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, directed by well-meaning South Africans of all races”. If Avril had been more aligned to her family’s principles, or raised in segregated America, she could have hesitated about this system. Yet her life had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I possess a UK passport,” she stated, “and the government agents failed to question me about my background.” So, with her “light” skin (as Jet put it), she moved within European circles, supported by their acclaim for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her father’s music at the Cape Town university and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, featuring the heroic third movement of her concerto, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a confident pianist herself, she never played as the lead performer in her piece. On the contrary, she consistently conducted as the leader; and so the orchestra of the era followed her lead.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “could introduce a shift”. But by 1954, things fell apart. When government agents became aware of her mixed background, she was forced to leave the land. Her citizenship didn’t protect her, the UK representative urged her to go or be jailed. She came home, embarrassed as the scale of her inexperience dawned. “The realization was a hard one,” she expressed. Compounding her humiliation was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these legacies, I perceived a familiar story. The story of identifying as British until it’s challenged – which recalls African-descended soldiers who fought on behalf of the British throughout the second world war and survived only to be not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,