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This talented musician constantly experienced the weight of her parent’s legacy. As the offspring of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent English composers of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s identity was cloaked in the long shadows of history.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I reflected on these legacies as I made arrangements to make the first-ever recording of her piano concerto from 1936. Boasting intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and confident beats, this piece will provide audiences valuable perspective into how she – a wartime composer born in 1903 – imagined her reality as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

Yet about legacies. One needs patience to acclimate, to recognize outlines as they really are, to tell reality from distortion, and I was reluctant to confront Avril’s past for a while.

I deeply hoped her to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, this was true. The pastoral English palettes of parental inspiration can be observed in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to examine the names of her parent’s works to see how he heard himself as both a standard-bearer of British Romantic style and also a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that father and daughter appeared to part ways.

White America judged Samuel by the brilliance of his music rather than the colour of his skin.

Family Background

During his studies at the renowned institution, her father – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – began embracing his heritage. When the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the 21-year-old composer actively pursued him. He set the poet’s African Romances into music and the following year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, notably for Black Americans who felt indirect honor as the majority judged Samuel by the excellence of his art as opposed to the his background.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not temper his activism. In 1900, he attended the initial Pan African gathering in England where he encountered the prominent scholar this influential figure and saw a range of talks, including on the subjugation of the Black community there. He was a campaigner throughout his life. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders such as the scholar and Booker T Washington, delivered his own speeches on equality for all, and even discussed racial problems with the American leader during an invitation to the presidential residence in 1904. As for his music, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so high as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He succumbed in the early 20th century, in his thirties. Yet how might the composer have reacted to his offspring’s move to travel to the African nation in the that decade?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Daughter of Famous Composer shows support to apartheid system,” declared a title in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “seems to me the appropriate course”, the composer stated Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she did not support with apartheid “as a concept” and it “should be allowed to run its course, overseen by well-meaning people of all races”. Had Avril been more aligned to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in Jim Crow America, she may have reconsidered about this system. But life had shielded her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a English document,” she remarked, “and the government agents never asked me about my background.” Thus, with her “fair” skin (according to the magazine), she traveled alongside white society, supported by their praise for her renowned family member. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and led the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, programming the inspiring part of her composition, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Even though a skilled pianist personally, she never played as the featured artist in her concerto. Rather, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra followed her lead.

The composer aspired, according to her, she “could introduce a change”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. Once officials became aware of her African heritage, she had to depart the nation. Her UK document offered no defense, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the extent of her innocence became clear. “The lesson was a painful one,” she stated. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these legacies, I perceived a recurring theme. The narrative of being British until it’s revoked – that brings to mind Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the English throughout the global conflict and survived only to be denied their due compensation. Along with the Windrush era,