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This talented musician always bore the pressure of her father’s reputation. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known English composers of the 1900s, her identity was shrouded in the long shadows of bygone eras.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I reflected on these memories as I made arrangements to record the world premiere recording of the composer’s 1936 piano concerto. With its impassioned harmonies, expressive melodies, and confident beats, Avril’s work will offer music lovers valuable perspective into how the composer – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – imagined her existence as a artist with mixed heritage.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about the past. It requires time to adapt, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to face the composer’s background for a while.

I earnestly desired the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, she was. The idyllic English tones of parental inspiration can be detected in many of her works, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to examine the names of her parent’s works to realize how he viewed himself as both a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition but a voice of the Black diaspora.

It was here that father and daughter began to differ.

White America evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his music instead of the his racial background.

Parental Heritage

While he was studying at the renowned institution, her father – the child of a parent from Sierra Leone and a white English mother – began embracing his background. At the time the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the young musician was keen to meet him. He set this literary work to music and the following year used the poet’s words for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral work that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, especially with the Black community who felt shared pride as American society judged Samuel by the brilliance of his art instead of the his background.

Principles and Actions

Success failed to diminish Samuel’s politics. During that period, he was present at the pioneering African conference in London where he met the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and witnessed a variety of discussions, covering the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He was an activist throughout his life. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders like the scholar and Booker T Washington, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on issues of racism with President Theodore Roosevelt while visiting to the White House in the early 1900s. Regarding his compositions, Du Bois recalled, “he established his reputation so prominently as a creative artist that it will long be remembered.” He succumbed in the early 20th century, in his thirties. But what would Samuel have made of his daughter’s decision to work in the African nation in the 1950s?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the correct approach”, the composer stated Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with this policy “in principle” and it “could be left to work itself out, overseen by benevolent residents of all races”. If Avril had been more in tune to her family’s principles, or born in segregated America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. But life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a UK passport,” she stated, “and the authorities never asked me about my race.” Therefore, with her “fair” skin (as described), she traveled within European circles, supported by their admiration for her deceased parent. She presented about her father’s music at the Cape Town university and directed the national orchestra in Johannesburg, including the bold final section of her composition, subtitled: “In remembrance of my Father.” Although a accomplished player on her own, she never played as the featured artist in her piece. Instead, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

The composer aspired, in her own words, she “may foster a change”. However, by that year, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents became aware of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the nation. Her UK document offered no defense, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the scale of her naivety dawned. “This experience was a difficult one,” she expressed. Compounding her humiliation was the 1955 publication of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her unceremonious exit from that nation.

A Recurring Theme

While I reflected with these legacies, I perceived a known narrative. The story of identifying as British until you’re not – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who defended the English throughout the global conflict and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,