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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually felt the burden of her father’s legacy. Being the child of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent British musicians of the early 20th century, Avril’s name was cloaked in the lingering obscurity of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I contemplated these memories as I made arrangements to produce the world premiere recording of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. Featuring emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, her composition will provide audiences fascinating insight into how this artist – a wartime composer who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her existence as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

However about legacies. It can take a while to adapt, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I was reluctant to confront her history for a period.

I had so wanted Avril to be a reflection of her father. Partially, she was. The idyllic English tones of Samuel’s influence can be detected in many of her works, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to review the names of her family’s music to see how he identified as both a champion of UK romantic tradition and also a advocate of the African diaspora.

At this point father and daughter began to differ.

White America judged Samuel by the excellence of his art as opposed to the his racial background.

Parental Heritage

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, her father – the offspring of a African father and a Caucasian parent – turned toward his background. Once the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in the late 19th century, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He set the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the following year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an international hit, particularly among the Black community who felt shared pride as white America assessed his work by the brilliance of his music instead of the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Recognition failed to diminish his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in London where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual this influential figure and witnessed a variety of discussions, covering the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He was an activist until the end. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders such as this intellectual and Booker T Washington, delivered his own speeches on equality for all, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the US President on a trip to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. Regarding his compositions, the scholar reflected, “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. But what would the composer have thought of his child’s choice to be in South Africa in the that decade?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician shows support to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. Upon further questioning, she backtracked: she didn’t agree with the system “in principle” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, guided by well-meaning South Africans of every background”. If Avril had been more in tune to her family’s principles, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about apartheid. But life had shielded her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I hold a English document,” she stated, “and the authorities failed to question me about my race.” So, with her “fair” appearance (as Jet put it), she traveled within European circles, supported by their praise for her deceased parent. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and directed the national orchestra in that location, featuring the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, named: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a skilled pianist personally, she did not perform as the soloist in her work. On the contrary, she consistently conducted as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “may foster a change”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. Once officials learned of her Black ancestry, she had to depart the land. Her citizenship failed to safeguard her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or be jailed. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the extent of her inexperience dawned. “The lesson was a hard one,” she lamented. Adding to her disgrace was the 1955 publication of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Recurring Theme

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I sensed a recurring theme. The narrative of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the UK throughout the second world war and lived only to be denied their due compensation. Along with the Windrush era,