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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually bore the weight of her father’s legacy. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the best-known English musicians of the early 20th century, her name was enveloped in the long shadows of the past.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I contemplated these shadows as I made arrangements to record the first-ever recording of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. Featuring impassioned harmonies, soulful lyricism, and bold rhythms, this piece will offer audiences deep understanding into how this artist – a wartime composer born in 1903 – conceived of her world as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

Yet about shadows. One needs patience to acclimate, to see shapes as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from distortion, and I felt hesitant to address the composer’s background for a while.

I deeply hoped the composer to be a reflection of her father. To some extent, she was. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be observed in many of her works, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to look at the names of her family’s music to understand how he heard himself as both a flag bearer of English Romanticism as well as a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that father and daughter began to differ.

The United States judged Samuel by the mastery of his art instead of the colour of his skin.

Samuel’s African Roots

During his studies at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the offspring of a parent from Sierra Leone and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his African roots. When the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in 1897, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He composed Dunbar’s African Romances as a composition and the subsequent year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral work that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an international hit, particularly among Black Americans who felt indirect honor as white America assessed his work by the excellence of his art rather than the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not temper his activism. In 1900, he participated in the pioneering African conference in London where he made the acquaintance of the prominent scholar this influential figure and saw a variety of discussions, such as the subjugation of Black South Africans. He remained an advocate until the end. He maintained ties with trailblazers for equality such as the scholar and the educator Washington, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even discussed racial problems with the American leader on a trip to the presidential residence in that year. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so notably as a composer that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in the early 20th century, at 37 years old. However, how would the composer have reacted to his daughter’s decision to be in the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician expresses approval to South African policy,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the appropriate course”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she revised her statement: she did not support with apartheid “as a concept” and it “could be left to work itself out, directed by good-intentioned South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more aligned to her family’s principles, or from Jim Crow America, she might have thought twice about this system. However, existence had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a UK passport,” she remarked, “and the government agents did not inquire me about my ethnicity.” Therefore, with her “porcelain-white” skin (according to the magazine), she moved alongside white society, lifted by their praise for her late father. She presented about her father’s music at the University of Cape Town and conducted the broadcasting ensemble in Johannesburg, featuring the heroic third movement of her concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Even though a accomplished player herself, she avoided playing as the featured artist in her work. Rather, she always led as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “may foster a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. After authorities became aware of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the land. Her citizenship offered no defense, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or face arrest. She returned to England, feeling great shame as the extent of her inexperience dawned. “This experience was a hard one,” she stated. Compounding her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

As I sat with these legacies, I perceived a recurring theme. The narrative of being British until it’s revoked – that brings to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the UK during the second world war and lived only to be refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,