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This talented musician constantly experienced the weight of her family reputation. As the offspring of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous English musicians of the early 20th century, the composer’s reputation was cloaked in the deep shadows of history.

A World Premiere

In recent months, I sat with these legacies as I prepared to record the inaugural album of her piano concerto from 1936. Featuring impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will provide music lovers valuable perspective into how the composer – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

Yet about legacies. One needs patience to acclimate, to recognize outlines as they really are, to distinguish truth from distortion, and I had been afraid to face her history for some time.

I had so wanted Avril to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, she was. The pastoral English palettes of parental inspiration can be detected in several pieces, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to examine the names of her family’s music to realize how he identified as not only a champion of British Romantic style and also a voice of the Black diaspora.

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

The United States judged Samuel by the brilliance of his music instead of the his ethnicity.

Parental Heritage

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, the composer – the child of a African father and a British mother – started to lean into his African roots. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar came to London in 1897, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He adapted this literary work into music and the following year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, particularly among Black Americans who felt vicarious pride as the majority evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his music instead of the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Recognition did not temper Samuel’s politics. In 1900, he participated in the pioneering African conference in London where he made the acquaintance of the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and observed a range of talks, such as the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He was an activist until the end. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders like this intellectual and Booker T Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even discussed racial problems with the US President while visiting to the US capital in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he wrote his name so notably as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He died in 1912, in his thirties. But what would the composer have thought of his child’s choice to work in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared 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 “ought to be permitted to run its course, overseen by well-meaning residents of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more aligned to her family’s principles, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about apartheid. However, existence had sheltered her.

Identity and Naivety

“I have a English document,” she stated, “and the authorities never asked me about my race.” Therefore, with her “light” skin (according to the magazine), she floated within European circles, lifted by their admiration for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and directed the national orchestra in the city, featuring the heroic third movement of her Piano Concerto, titled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a skilled pianist herself, she never played as the featured artist in her piece. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the orchestra of the era played under her baton.

She desired, as she stated, she “may foster a shift”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents discovered her African heritage, she could no longer stay the country. Her citizenship offered no defense, the British high commissioner recommended her departure or risk imprisonment. She returned to England, embarrassed as the extent of her innocence was realized. “This experience was a painful one,” she stated. Adding to her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Familiar Story

Upon contemplating with these memories, I sensed a familiar story. The account of holding UK citizenship until it’s revoked – that brings to mind troops of color who served for the British during the global conflict and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,