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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly bore the burden of her parent’s reputation. Being the child of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous English artists of the turn of the 20th century, her identity was cloaked in the deep shadows of the past.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I contemplated these legacies as I prepared to record the first-ever recording of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. Boasting intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and confident beats, this piece will grant new listeners valuable perspective into how the composer – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – envisioned her world as a artist with mixed heritage.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about shadows. It requires time to adjust, to see shapes as they truly exist, to separate fact from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to face the composer’s background for some time.

I had so wanted her to be her father’s daughter. Partially, she was. The pastoral English palettes of her father’s impact can be detected in numerous compositions, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the headings of her parent’s works to understand how he identified as not only a standard-bearer of British Romantic style and also a voice of the African heritage.

It was here that father and daughter seemed to diverge.

The United States judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions as opposed to the his ethnicity.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the prestigious music college, her father – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – turned toward his African roots. At the time the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in the late 19th century, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He adapted this literary work to music and the next year used the poet’s words for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, particularly among the Black community who felt vicarious pride as white America judged Samuel by the excellence of his art as opposed to the his background.

Principles and Actions

Fame did not temper his beliefs. In 1900, he attended the initial Pan African gathering in London where he made the acquaintance of the prominent scholar this influential figure and saw a variety of discussions, covering the mistreatment of the Black community there. He was an activist to his final days. He maintained ties with pioneers of civil rights like this intellectual and Booker T Washington, gave addresses on racial equality, and even talked about matters of race with the US President while visiting to the White House in 1904. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so notably as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He died in that year, in his thirties. However, how would her father have thought of his offspring’s move to be in the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Conflict and Policy

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to South African policy,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the appropriate course”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with the system “in principle” and it “ought to be permitted to work itself out, guided by good-intentioned people of diverse ethnicities”. Had Avril been more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or from segregated America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. However, existence had sheltered her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a UK passport,” she stated, “and the government agents did not inquire me about my race.” So, with her “light” complexion (as Jet put it), she moved within European circles, supported by their praise for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and led the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in that location, programming the inspiring part of her Piano Concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Although a skilled pianist personally, she never played as the soloist in her piece. Rather, she always led as the leader; and so the orchestra of the era played under her baton.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “might bring a transformation”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. After authorities became aware of her mixed background, she was forced to leave the nation. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the UK representative recommended her departure or risk imprisonment. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her innocence became clear. “This experience was a hard one,” she lamented. Adding to her disgrace was the 1955 publication of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her sudden departure from the country.

A Familiar Story

As I sat with these shadows, I perceived a known narrative. The story of identifying as British until it’s challenged – which recalls African-descended soldiers who defended the English in the second world war and lived only to be denied their due compensation. And the Windrush generation,