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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the weight of her parent’s heritage. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous English composers of the 1900s, Avril’s name was cloaked in the lingering obscurity of history.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I sat with these shadows as I got ready to produce the inaugural album of the composer’s 1936 piano concerto. With its emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, her composition will offer new listeners deep understanding into how she – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her existence as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. It requires time to adapt, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from distortion, and I felt hesitant to confront her history for a period.

I had so wanted Avril to be following in her father’s footsteps. In some ways, this was true. The pastoral English palettes of parental inspiration can be observed in many of her works, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the titles of her family’s music to see how he heard himself as not just a standard-bearer of British Romantic style and also a representative of the Black diaspora.

At this point Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

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

Parental Heritage

As a student at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – started to lean into his heritage. At the time the poet of color Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the young musician was keen to meet him. He set the poet’s African Romances to music and the next year adapted his verses for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an worldwide sensation, particularly among the Black community who felt indirect honor as white America judged Samuel by the brilliance of his music rather than the colour of his skin.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Success did not reduce his beliefs. In 1900, he attended the pioneering African conference in London where he met the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and witnessed a variety of discussions, such as the oppression of Black South Africans. He remained an advocate throughout his life. He kept connections with pioneers of civil rights such as this intellectual and the educator Washington, delivered his own speeches on equality for all, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the American leader on a trip to the US capital in 1904. As for his music, the scholar reflected, “he established his reputation so prominently as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He died in 1912, aged 37. But what would the composer have thought of his offspring’s move to be in South Africa in the that decade?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician gives OK to South African policy,” appeared as a heading in the African American magazine Jet magazine. The system “struck me as the correct approach”, the composer stated Jet. When asked to explain, she revised her statement: she didn’t agree with this policy “in principle” and it “could be left to resolve itself, overseen by good-intentioned people of every background”. Were the composer more aligned to her father’s politics, or raised in Jim Crow America, she might have thought twice about apartheid. Yet her life had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I have a British passport,” she stated, “and the government agents never asked me about my ethnicity.” Therefore, with her “fair” skin (according to the magazine), she floated among the Europeans, lifted by their admiration for her renowned family member. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and directed the national orchestra in Johannesburg, featuring the bold final section of her Piano Concerto, titled: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a accomplished player herself, she did not perform as the soloist in her piece. Rather, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble played under her baton.

The composer aspired, according to her, she “might bring a shift”. However, by that year, the situation collapsed. Once officials learned of her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the country. Her UK document offered no defense, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or face arrest. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the magnitude of her inexperience dawned. “The realization was a hard one,” she lamented. Compounding her disgrace was the printing that year of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these shadows, I perceived a familiar story. The narrative of identifying as British until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind troops of color who served for the English in the World War II and made it through but were denied their due compensation. Along with the Windrush era,