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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the pressure of her parent’s heritage. As the daughter of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent UK artists of the 1900s, Avril’s name was shrouded in the long shadows of the past.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I reflected on these shadows as I got ready to record the first-ever recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. Featuring emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, this piece will grant audiences fascinating insight into how she – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – imagined her reality as a artist with mixed heritage.

Past and Present

Yet about legacies. It can take a while to adapt, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to address Avril’s past for some time.

I deeply hoped her to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, that held. The rustic British sounds of parental inspiration can be detected in numerous compositions, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the titles of her family’s music to understand how he identified as not just a standard-bearer of British Romantic style and also a voice of the African heritage.

It was here that Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

White America evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his art as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Family Background

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, Samuel – the son of a parent from Sierra Leone and a Caucasian parent – started to lean into his heritage. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the young musician was keen to meet him. He adapted the poet’s African Romances to music and the subsequent year incorporated his poetry for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an worldwide sensation, notably for the Black community who felt vicarious pride as the majority judged Samuel by the quality of his music as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not temper Samuel’s politics. During that period, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he encountered the prominent scholar the renowned Du Bois and observed a range of talks, including on the subjugation of Black South Africans. He was a campaigner to his final days. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders including Du Bois and this leader, gave addresses on equality for all, and even talked about matters of race with President Theodore Roosevelt while visiting to the presidential residence in 1904. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he established his reputation so high as a creative artist that it will endure.” He passed away in 1912, in his thirties. But what would the composer have reacted to his daughter’s decision to work in this country in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Offspring of Renowned Musician gives OK to S African Bias,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “seems to me the right policy”, Avril told Jet. When asked to explain, she revised her statement: she did not support with apartheid “fundamentally” and it “should be allowed to work itself out, directed by good-intentioned residents of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more attuned to her father’s politics, or born in Jim Crow America, she may have reconsidered about the policy. However, existence had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a English document,” she said, “and the officials failed to question me about my ethnicity.” Thus, with her “fair” appearance (as Jet put it), she traveled alongside white society, supported by their admiration for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and led the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, including the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, subtitled: “In memory of my Father.” While a accomplished player personally, she did not perform as the soloist in her work. Instead, she always led as the conductor; and so the orchestra of the era played under her baton.

Avril hoped, as she stated, she “might bring a transformation”. However, by that year, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents became aware of her African heritage, she had to depart the nation. Her British passport failed to safeguard her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or face arrest. She came home, deeply ashamed as the extent of her naivety became clear. “The realization was a painful one,” she lamented. Adding to her disgrace was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from the country.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these legacies, I sensed a familiar story. The story of being British until it’s revoked – which recalls African-descended soldiers who defended the UK during the second world war and made it through but were denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,