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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the pressure of her father’s heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the prominent UK musicians of the early 20th century, the composer’s identity was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of the past.

A World Premiere

In recent months, I contemplated these legacies as I got ready to make the world premiere recording of the composer’s concerto for piano composed in 1936. Featuring emotional harmonies, soulful lyricism, and confident beats, Avril’s work will grant new listeners deep understanding into how she – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – envisioned her existence as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

Yet about the past. It requires time to adjust, to see shapes as they really are, to tell reality from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to face Avril’s past for some time.

I had so wanted the composer to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, this was true. The rustic British sounds of parental inspiration can be detected in several pieces, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the headings of her parent’s works to realize how he viewed himself as both a standard-bearer of British Romantic style and also a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that Samuel and Avril seemed to diverge.

The United States assessed the composer by the excellence of his music instead of the colour of his skin.

Family Background

While he was studying at the renowned institution, the composer – the offspring of a parent from Sierra Leone and a Caucasian parent – started to lean into his African roots. At the time the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar came to London in 1897, the 21-year-old composer actively pursued him. He adapted the poet’s African Romances to music and the next year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, particularly among African Americans who felt vicarious pride as white America judged Samuel by the excellence of his art rather than the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Success did not reduce his beliefs. In 1900, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he met the Black American thinker the renowned Du Bois and saw a range of talks, such as the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He was a campaigner until the end. He sustained relationships with trailblazers for equality including the scholar and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even engaged in dialogue on matters of race with President Theodore Roosevelt during an invitation to the US capital in 1904. In terms of his art, Du Bois recalled, “he wrote his name so high as a musician that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in that year, aged 37. However, how would her father have reacted to his daughter’s decision to work in the African nation in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist shows support to South African policy,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. This policy “seems to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. When pushed to clarify, she backtracked: she did not support with apartheid “in principle” and it “ought to be permitted to resolve itself, guided by well-meaning South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more aligned to her family’s principles, or raised in the US under segregation, she may have reconsidered about the policy. But life had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a English document,” she said, “and the government agents never asked me about my background.” So, with her “fair” skin (as Jet put it), she moved within European circles, buoyed up by their admiration for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and conducted the broadcasting ensemble in the city, including the bold final section of her Piano Concerto, subtitled: “In memory of my Father.” While a skilled pianist personally, she never played as the lead performer in her concerto. Instead, she always led as the conductor; and so the orchestra of the era performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, as she stated, she “could introduce a change”. But by 1954, things fell apart. Once officials became aware of her mixed background, she could no longer stay the nation. Her citizenship offered no defense, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or be jailed. She returned to England, embarrassed as the scale of her naivety became clear. “This experience was a difficult one,” she expressed. Adding to her disgrace was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from that nation.

A Common Narrative

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I sensed a known narrative. The account of holding UK citizenship until you’re not – one that calls to mind troops of color who defended the UK during the global conflict and lived only to be denied their due compensation. Along with the Windrush era,