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This talented musician always experienced the burden of her family heritage. As the offspring of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known English musicians of the 1900s, Avril’s reputation was cloaked in the long shadows of bygone eras.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I sat with these shadows as I got ready to make the world premiere recording of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. Boasting impassioned harmonies, soulful lyricism, and bold rhythms, Avril’s work will grant music lovers valuable perspective into how she – a composer during war born in 1903 – envisioned her reality as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about legacies. One needs patience to acclimate, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to separate fact from distortion, and I had been afraid to face the composer’s background for a period.

I earnestly desired her to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, this was true. The idyllic English tones of parental inspiration can be observed in numerous compositions, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the headings of her family’s music to see how he heard himself as both a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition but a representative of the African diaspora.

At this point Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

The United States judged Samuel by the brilliance of his art rather than the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the prestigious music college, the composer – the son of a African father and a British mother – turned toward his African roots. Once the poet of color the renowned Dunbar arrived in England in 1897, the young musician actively pursued him. He composed this literary work into music and the subsequent year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an international hit, especially with Black Americans who felt indirect honor as the majority assessed his work by the excellence of his music instead of the his background.

Activism and Politics

Success failed to diminish Samuel’s politics. At the turn of the century, he attended the First Pan African Conference in London where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual this influential figure and witnessed a variety of discussions, covering the subjugation of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate to his final days. He kept connections with trailblazers for equality such as the scholar and this leader, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even talked about issues of racism with President Theodore Roosevelt while visiting to the presidential residence in that year. Regarding his compositions, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so notably as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He died in the early 20th century, aged 37. However, how would the composer have thought of his daughter’s decision to travel to the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Conflict and Policy

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to South African policy,” declared a title in the Black American publication Jet magazine. Apartheid “seems to me the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she backtracked: she was not in favor with apartheid “in principle” and it “ought to be permitted to run its course, directed by benevolent South Africans of every background”. Had Avril been more aligned to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in segregated America, she may have reconsidered about the policy. However, existence had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I possess a British passport,” she said, “and the officials failed to question me about my race.” So, with her “porcelain-white” appearance (as described), she floated alongside white society, supported by their admiration for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her father’s music at the educational institution and directed the national orchestra in that location, featuring the inspiring part of her composition, subtitled: “In memory of my Father.” Even though a confident pianist personally, she avoided playing as the lead performer in her piece. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the conductor; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, in her own words, she “may foster a change”. But by 1954, the situation collapsed. After authorities discovered her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the nation. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner recommended her departure or risk imprisonment. She came home, deeply ashamed as the scale of her innocence was realized. “This experience was a difficult one,” she lamented. Increasing her humiliation was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from that nation.

A Familiar Story

Upon contemplating with these memories, I perceived a familiar story. The narrative of identifying as British until it’s revoked – that brings to mind troops of color who fought on behalf of the English throughout the second world war and survived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,