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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the weight of her family legacy. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent English musicians of the early 20th century, the composer’s identity was enveloped in the deep shadows of history.

A World Premiere

In recent months, I reflected on these memories as I got ready to produce the inaugural album of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Featuring impassioned harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, her composition will provide audiences valuable perspective into how she – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – envisioned her world as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

Yet about shadows. One needs patience to acclimate, to see shapes as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I felt hesitant to address her history for some time.

I had so wanted Avril to be her father’s daughter. Partially, that held. The idyllic English tones of her father’s impact can be observed in many of her works, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the titles of her father’s compositions to see how he heard himself as both a flag bearer of British Romantic style and also a representative of the African diaspora.

This was where parent and child seemed to diverge.

American society evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his art as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Family Background

As a student at the prestigious music college, her father – the child of a parent from Sierra Leone and a white English mother – started to lean into his heritage. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar came to London in 1897, the 21-year-old composer eagerly sought him out. He composed the poet’s African Romances into music and the next year used the poet’s words for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral work that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, notably for the Black community who felt shared pride as American society judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions rather than the his background.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Fame did not temper Samuel’s politics. In 1900, he attended the First Pan African Conference in the UK where he made the acquaintance of the prominent scholar the renowned Du Bois and observed a range of talks, including on the oppression of the Black community there. He remained an advocate throughout his life. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders such as this intellectual and Booker T Washington, gave addresses on equality for all, and even talked about issues of racism with the American leader while visiting to the White House in 1904. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so notably as a musician that it will endure.” He died in 1912, in his thirties. However, how would the composer have thought of his offspring’s move to be in South Africa in the 1950s?

Conflict and Policy

“Offspring of Renowned Musician expresses approval to S African Bias,” appeared as a heading in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “appeared to me the right policy”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with the system “fundamentally” and it “could be left to work itself out, guided by well-meaning South Africans of all races”. If Avril had been more aligned to her father’s politics, or born in Jim Crow America, she could have hesitated about this system. Yet her life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I have a British passport,” she said, “and the officials never asked me about my ethnicity.” Therefore, with her “light” skin (according to the magazine), she moved within European circles, supported by their admiration for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her father’s music at the Cape Town university and led the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in that location, including the bold final section of her concerto, titled: “In remembrance of my Father.” Although a accomplished player personally, she avoided playing as the featured artist in her concerto. Instead, she invariably directed as the conductor; and so the apartheid orchestra followed her lead.

She desired, as she stated, she “may foster a change”. However, by that year, the situation collapsed. Once officials discovered her African heritage, she was forced to leave the nation. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or face arrest. She came home, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her innocence became clear. “The realization was a hard one,” she expressed. Adding to her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Recurring Theme

While I reflected with these legacies, I perceived a known narrative. The story of holding UK citizenship until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind troops of color who fought on behalf of the English during the second world war and survived only to be not given their earned rewards. Including those from Windrush,