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Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly felt the weight of her parent’s reputation. As the offspring of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous British artists of the 1900s, the composer’s identity was enveloped in the deep shadows of the past.

A World Premiere

Not long ago, I contemplated these shadows as I got ready to produce the first-ever recording of Avril’s 1936 piano concerto. Boasting emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and confident beats, this piece will grant new listeners deep understanding into how the composer – a composer during war originating from the early 1900s – imagined her reality as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

Yet about the past. One needs patience to adjust, to see shapes as they actually appear, to tell reality from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to address her history for some time.

I deeply hoped the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, she was. The pastoral English palettes of Samuel’s influence can be heard in numerous compositions, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the names of her father’s compositions to see how he heard himself as not just a flag bearer of English Romanticism but a representative of the Black diaspora.

At this point Samuel and Avril began to differ.

American society evaluated Samuel by the brilliance of his art rather than the colour of his skin.

Family Background

During his studies at the renowned institution, Samuel – the child of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his background. At the time the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar came to London in the late 19th century, the young musician was keen to meet him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances as a composition and the subsequent year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral work that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an international hit, particularly among African Americans who felt shared pride as white America assessed his work by the quality of his compositions as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Success did not temper his beliefs. In 1900, he attended the pioneering African conference in England where he encountered the prominent scholar this influential figure and observed a variety of discussions, covering the oppression of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate to his final days. He kept connections with pioneers of civil rights like Du Bois and this leader, spoke publicly on equality for all, and even discussed issues of racism with the US President during an invitation to the US capital in that year. Regarding his compositions, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so high as a composer that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He died in the early 20th century, aged 37. But what would Samuel have reacted to his daughter’s decision to be in this country in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to S African Bias,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she did not support with this policy “in principle” and it “could be left to work itself out, guided by benevolent people of all races”. If Avril had been more attuned to her father’s politics, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about this system. However, existence had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I hold a English document,” she stated, “and the officials failed to question me about my race.” Therefore, with her “porcelain-white” skin (according to the magazine), she traveled among the Europeans, buoyed up by their acclaim for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and led the national orchestra in that location, featuring the inspiring part of her concerto, named: “In memory of my Father.” Although a confident pianist personally, she never played as the soloist in her concerto. Rather, she consistently conducted as the conductor; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

Avril hoped, as she stated, she “may foster a change”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. When government agents discovered her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the country. Her citizenship didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official urged her to go or face arrest. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the magnitude of her innocence became clear. “The realization was a hard one,” she expressed. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her forced leaving from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these shadows, I sensed a familiar story. The account of being British until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who served for the English during the second world war and survived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,