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Avril Coleridge-Taylor always felt the pressure of her father’s heritage. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the best-known English artists of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s identity was cloaked in the lingering obscurity of history.

An Inaugural Recording

Not long ago, I contemplated these shadows as I got ready to record the first-ever recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. Featuring emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, Avril’s work will grant audiences fascinating insight into how the composer – a wartime composer originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her existence as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about the past. It can take a while to adjust, to recognize outlines as they truly exist, to tell reality from distortion, and I had been afraid to address the composer’s background for a period.

I earnestly desired the composer to be her father’s daughter. Partially, this was true. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be heard in several pieces, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the names of her family’s music to see how he identified as not only a champion of UK romantic tradition and also a advocate of the African heritage.

It was here that parent and child began to differ.

White America judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions instead of the his ethnicity.

Family Background

As a student at the prestigious music college, the composer – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – began embracing his heritage. At the time the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar visited the UK in the late 19th century, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the next year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, particularly among the Black community who felt vicarious pride as white America judged Samuel by the quality of his compositions as opposed to the his background.

Activism and Politics

Recognition failed to diminish his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in England where he made the acquaintance of the Black American thinker this influential figure and saw a variety of discussions, covering the oppression of African people in South Africa. He was a campaigner until the end. He kept connections with pioneers of civil rights including this intellectual and this leader, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even talked about issues of racism with the US President on a trip to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, Du Bois recalled, “he established his reputation so notably as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He died in that year, in his thirties. But what would Samuel have thought of his daughter’s decision to be in South Africa in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to S African Bias,” declared a title in the African American magazine Jet magazine. This policy “seems to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. When asked to explain, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with this policy “fundamentally” and it “could be left to run its course, guided by benevolent people of diverse ethnicities”. Had Avril been more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or from segregated America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. But life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a English document,” she said, “and the authorities never asked me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “light” appearance (according to the magazine), she moved alongside white society, lifted by their admiration for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and conducted the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, including the inspiring part of her Piano Concerto, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” While a confident pianist herself, she never played as the lead performer in her concerto. Rather, she consistently conducted as the conductor; and so the segregated ensemble performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “could introduce a transformation”. However, by that year, things fell apart. When government agents discovered her mixed background, she was forced to leave the country. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official urged her to go or face arrest. She returned to England, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her inexperience dawned. “The realization was a hard one,” she lamented. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these legacies, I felt a known narrative. The story of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – which recalls African-descended soldiers who defended the British in the second world war and lived only to be not given their earned rewards. And the Windrush generation,