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Avril Coleridge-Taylor always felt the weight of her father’s reputation. As the offspring of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous English composers of the turn of the 20th century, her name was cloaked in the long shadows of bygone eras.

The First Recording

Not long ago, I contemplated these shadows as I got ready to record the world premiere recording of Avril’s 1936 piano concerto. Boasting impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, this piece will offer new listeners fascinating insight into how this artist – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – conceived of her existence as a female composer of color.

Legacy and Reality

Yet about the past. It can take a while to adapt, to perceive forms as they really are, to separate fact from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to address her history for a while.

I had so wanted the composer to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, this was true. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be observed in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to look at the names of her father’s compositions to realize how he identified as not only a champion of British Romantic style as well as a representative of the Black diaspora.

It was here that parent and child began to differ.

White America assessed the composer by the brilliance of his compositions rather than the his racial background.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the prestigious music college, her father – the son of a African father and a British mother – began embracing his heritage. At the time the African American poet this literary figure came to London in the late 19th century, the young musician was keen to meet him. He adapted this literary work as a composition and the following year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, especially with African Americans who felt indirect honor as white America evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his art as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Success did not temper Samuel’s politics. In 1900, he participated in the pioneering African conference in England where he encountered the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and saw a series of speeches, covering the oppression of the Black community there. He was a campaigner until the end. He kept connections with trailblazers for equality including the scholar and Booker T Washington, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even discussed racial problems with President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to the US capital in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so prominently as a creative artist that it will endure.” He passed away in that year, aged 37. But what would the composer have thought of his child’s choice to be in this country in the 1950s?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to South African policy,” declared a title in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the right policy”, Avril told Jet. When pushed to clarify, she revised her statement: she did not support with this policy “as a concept” and it “could be left to work itself out, guided by well-meaning people of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more in tune to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in the US under segregation, she may have reconsidered about apartheid. Yet her life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a English document,” she remarked, “and the authorities did not inquire me about my background.” Thus, with her “fair” skin (as Jet put it), she floated alongside white society, lifted by their admiration for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her father’s music at the educational institution and led the national orchestra in the city, including the bold final section of her concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Although a skilled pianist herself, she never played as the featured artist in her piece. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the orchestra of the era followed her lead.

She desired, according to her, she “could introduce a change”. However, by that year, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents discovered her mixed background, she was forced to leave the land. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or be jailed. She came home, embarrassed as the scale of her inexperience dawned. “The realization was a hard one,” she lamented. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her forced leaving from that nation.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these legacies, I sensed a known narrative. The story of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – which recalls African-descended soldiers who defended the English during the global conflict and survived only to be refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,