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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly experienced the weight of her parent’s heritage. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known English composers of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s reputation was enveloped in the deep shadows of history.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I reflected on these shadows as I prepared to record the world premiere recording of the composer’s 1936 piano concerto. With its intense musical themes, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, this piece will offer music lovers fascinating insight into how the composer – an artist in conflict born in 1903 – imagined her world as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about legacies. It requires time to adapt, to see shapes as they truly exist, to tell reality from misrepresentation, and I was reluctant to address her history for some time.

I had so wanted the composer to be her father’s daughter. Partially, she was. The rustic British sounds of her father’s impact can be observed in several pieces, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the titles of her father’s compositions to understand how he viewed himself as both a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition and also a representative of the African heritage.

This was where parent and child began to differ.

The United States assessed the composer by the brilliance of his music as opposed to the his racial background.

Samuel’s African Roots

While he was studying at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the child of a parent from Sierra Leone and a white English mother – began embracing his background. When the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar came to London in 1897, the aspiring artist actively pursued him. He set Dunbar’s African Romances as a composition and the subsequent year used the poet’s words for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, notably for Black Americans who felt indirect honor as white America judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions instead of the his race.

Principles and Actions

Fame failed to diminish Samuel’s politics. At the turn of the century, he participated in the First Pan African Conference in the UK where he met the Black American thinker this influential figure and witnessed a range of talks, including on the oppression of African people in South Africa. He was an activist until the end. He kept connections with trailblazers for equality such as this intellectual and Booker T Washington, spoke publicly on equality for all, and even discussed matters of race with the US President while visiting to the presidential residence in 1904. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he established his reputation so notably as a composer that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in the early 20th century, aged 37. But what would the composer have made of his child’s choice to work in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Conflict and Policy

“Offspring of Renowned Musician expresses approval to S African Bias,” appeared as a heading in the community journal Jet magazine. This policy “struck me as the right policy”, she informed Jet. When pushed to clarify, she qualified her remarks: she did not support with apartheid “in principle” and it “could be left to work itself out, guided by well-meaning people of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more attuned to her father’s politics, or from the US under segregation, she could have hesitated about the policy. But life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I have a UK passport,” she remarked, “and the authorities failed to question me about my ethnicity.” Therefore, with her “light” skin (as Jet put it), she floated among the Europeans, buoyed up by their praise for her late father. She delivered a lecture about her father’s music at the University of Cape Town and led the broadcasting ensemble in that location, programming the heroic third movement of her concerto, named: “In memory of my Father.” While a confident pianist personally, she did not perform as the lead performer in her concerto. On the contrary, she always led as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

Avril hoped, in her own words, she “may foster a change”. However, by that year, the situation collapsed. Once officials learned of her mixed background, she could no longer stay the country. Her UK document offered no defense, the diplomatic official urged her to go or be jailed. She came home, deeply ashamed as the extent of her inexperience dawned. “The realization was a hard one,” she lamented. Adding to her embarrassment was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

As I sat with these memories, I sensed a familiar story. The account of being British until it’s challenged – that brings to mind troops of color who defended the British throughout the global conflict and survived only to be denied their due compensation. Along with the Windrush era,