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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor always bore the weight of her father’s heritage. As the offspring of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the most famous English musicians of the 1900s, Avril’s name was enveloped in the long shadows of history.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I contemplated these shadows as I prepared to produce the first-ever recording of her piano concerto from 1936. Featuring impassioned harmonies, expressive melodies, and valiant rhythms, this piece will grant audiences deep understanding into how she – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – conceived of her existence as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. It can take a while to acclimate, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to face her history for a period.

I earnestly desired Avril to be her father’s daughter. In some ways, that held. 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). But you only have to review the names of her parent’s works to see how he viewed himself as not only a champion of English Romanticism and also a representative of the African heritage.

It was here that father and daughter began to differ.

American society evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his music rather than the his ethnicity.

Samuel’s African Roots

While he was studying at the Royal College of Music, the composer – the son of a African father and a white English mother – began embracing his background. When the poet of color Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in the late 19th century, the 21-year-old composer eagerly sought him out. He adapted this literary work to music and the subsequent year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, particularly among African Americans who felt indirect honor as American society evaluated the composer by the quality of his art as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Fame failed to diminish his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he attended the initial Pan African gathering in England where he encountered the African American intellectual this influential figure and observed a series of speeches, covering the oppression of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate to his final days. He sustained relationships with trailblazers for equality including Du Bois and this leader, gave addresses on ending discrimination, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the American leader on a trip to the US capital in 1904. Regarding his compositions, the scholar reflected, “he wrote his name so notably as a creative artist that it will long be remembered.” He passed away in that year, at 37 years old. However, how would the composer have thought of his daughter’s decision to work in the African nation in the that decade?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician shows support to South African policy,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. The system “struck me as the right policy”, she informed Jet. When pushed to clarify, she qualified her remarks: she didn’t agree with the system “in principle” and it “could be left to resolve itself, guided by benevolent South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more aligned to her family’s principles, or raised in segregated America, she could have hesitated about this system. But life had shielded her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a English document,” she stated, “and the government agents never asked me about my race.” So, with her “porcelain-white” complexion (as described), she moved within European circles, supported by their praise for her late father. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and conducted the national orchestra in Johannesburg, featuring the inspiring part of her composition, named: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a accomplished player personally, she avoided playing as the soloist in her work. On the contrary, she always led as the conductor; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

She desired, according to her, she “could introduce a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents learned of her African heritage, she could no longer stay the country. Her British passport failed to safeguard her, the diplomatic official urged her to go or be jailed. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her inexperience dawned. “This experience was a painful one,” she lamented. Adding to her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Recurring Theme

Upon contemplating with these legacies, I sensed a familiar story. The narrative of identifying as British until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind troops of color who served for the UK in the second world war and survived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,