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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly felt the weight of her parent’s reputation. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the best-known English musicians of the early 20th century, her identity was shrouded in the long shadows of the past.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I contemplated these shadows as I prepared to record the world premiere recording of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. Boasting intense musical themes, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will offer new listeners fascinating insight into how this artist – a wartime composer born in 1903 – envisioned her world as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. It requires time to adjust, to see shapes as they really are, to separate fact from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to address the composer’s background for a period.

I had so wanted her to be following in her father’s footsteps. In some ways, that held. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be heard in several pieces, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to review the names of her father’s compositions to understand how he viewed himself as not only a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition but a representative of the Black diaspora.

At this point father and daughter seemed to diverge.

American society judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

During his studies at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – began embracing his background. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar visited the UK in the late 19th century, the young musician was keen to meet him. He set Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the following year used the poet’s words for a musical work, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral piece that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an international hit, particularly among African Americans who felt vicarious pride as the majority judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions rather than the his background.

Activism and Politics

Recognition did not reduce his beliefs. During that period, he was present at the First Pan African Conference in London where he met the African American intellectual this influential figure and witnessed a range of talks, such as the subjugation of Black South Africans. He was a campaigner throughout his life. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders including the scholar and Booker T Washington, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on matters of race with President Theodore Roosevelt while visiting to the White House in that year. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he established his reputation so high as a musician that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in 1912, aged 37. However, how would Samuel have made of his offspring’s move to be in this country in the 1950s?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to South African policy,” declared a title in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the correct approach”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she backtracked: she was not in favor with the system “fundamentally” and it “could be left to work itself out, overseen by well-meaning people of every background”. If Avril had been more aligned to her parent’s beliefs, or born in Jim Crow America, she could have hesitated about the policy. But life had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a British passport,” she said, “and the government agents failed to question me about my background.” So, with her “porcelain-white” appearance (as described), she traveled alongside white society, buoyed up by their admiration for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her father’s music at the educational institution and led the broadcasting ensemble in that location, featuring the heroic third movement of her composition, subtitled: “In memory of my Father.” Although a confident pianist personally, she never played as the featured artist in her concerto. Instead, she always led as the conductor; and so the segregated ensemble performed under her direction.

She desired, according to her, she “may foster a shift”. But by 1954, the situation collapsed. After authorities discovered her mixed background, she had to depart the land. Her British passport offered no defense, the UK representative advised her to leave or face arrest. She returned to England, embarrassed as the magnitude of her innocence was realized. “The realization was a difficult one,” she stated. Compounding her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from that nation.

A Common Narrative

Upon contemplating with these memories, I perceived a familiar story. The story of holding UK citizenship until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who served for the British during the global conflict and survived only to be denied their due compensation. And the Windrush generation,