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Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly felt the burden of her parent’s heritage. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent British musicians of the 1900s, Avril’s identity was shrouded in the lingering obscurity of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I sat with these legacies as I prepared to produce the inaugural album of Avril’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. Boasting impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, Avril’s work will provide new listeners deep understanding into how this artist – a wartime composer who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her world as a female composer of color.

Legacy and Reality

But here’s the thing about the past. It can take a while to acclimate, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to face Avril’s past for a while.

I had so wanted the composer to be her father’s daughter. In some ways, she was. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be heard in many of her works, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the names of her parent’s works to understand how he heard himself as not only a champion of English Romanticism as well as a voice of the African heritage.

This was where father and daughter seemed to diverge.

The United States assessed the composer by the brilliance of his compositions as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

While he was studying at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the offspring of a African father and a British mother – turned toward his African roots. At the time the poet of color the renowned Dunbar came to London in that era, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He composed this literary work as a composition and the next year incorporated his poetry for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an worldwide sensation, especially with Black Americans who felt vicarious pride as white America evaluated the composer by the quality of his music rather than the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Fame did not reduce his beliefs. In 1900, he participated in the pioneering African conference in the UK where he met the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and witnessed a variety of discussions, such as the subjugation of the Black community there. He remained an advocate until the end. He maintained ties with trailblazers for equality including Du Bois and Booker T Washington, gave addresses on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on issues of racism with the American leader during an invitation to the US capital in the early 1900s. As for his music, Du Bois recalled, “he established his reputation so notably as a creative artist that it will long be remembered.” He passed away in that year, at 37 years old. Yet how might the composer have reacted to his child’s choice to work in this country in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Daughter of Famous Composer shows support to apartheid system,” declared a title in the Black American publication Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she didn’t agree with apartheid “fundamentally” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, guided by well-meaning people of all races”. Had Avril been more in tune to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in the US under segregation, she might have thought twice about the policy. However, existence had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I possess a English document,” she stated, “and the authorities never asked me about my race.” So, with her “fair” complexion (as Jet put it), she traveled alongside white society, buoyed up by their praise for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in Johannesburg, featuring the heroic third movement of her composition, named: “In memory of my Father.” While a skilled pianist on her own, she did not perform as the lead performer in her piece. Instead, she invariably directed as the conductor; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “might bring a shift”. Yet in the mid-1950s, the situation collapsed. Once officials became aware of her Black ancestry, she had to depart the land. Her citizenship offered no defense, the British high commissioner urged her to go or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her naivety became clear. “The lesson was a painful one,” she lamented. Compounding her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

As I sat with these shadows, I felt a familiar story. The story of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the UK in the global conflict and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,