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Avril Coleridge-Taylor always felt the pressure of her father’s heritage. As the daughter of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the prominent UK composers of the 1900s, Avril’s name was cloaked in the lingering obscurity of the past.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I reflected on these shadows as I made arrangements to produce the first-ever recording of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. With its impassioned harmonies, expressive melodies, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will offer new listeners valuable perspective into how she – a wartime composer originating from the early 1900s – envisioned her reality as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about the past. It requires time to acclimate, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to address the composer’s background for a period.

I deeply hoped Avril to be a reflection of her father. To some extent, that held. The idyllic English tones of parental inspiration can be detected in many of her works, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to look at the titles of her father’s compositions to understand how he identified as both a champion of UK romantic tradition and also a advocate of the African heritage.

This was where Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

White America evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his compositions instead of the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the renowned institution, the composer – the offspring of a African father and a British mother – turned toward his background. When the poet of color this literary figure visited the UK in that era, the young musician eagerly sought him out. He set this literary work into music and the following year incorporated his poetry for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, especially with the Black community who felt vicarious pride as American society assessed his work by the brilliance of his music as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Success did not temper Samuel’s politics. In 1900, he was present at the pioneering African conference in the UK where he met the African American intellectual this influential figure and witnessed a series of speeches, such as the mistreatment of the Black community there. He was a campaigner to his final days. He sustained relationships with pioneers of civil rights like this intellectual and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even talked about matters of race with the American leader on a trip to the US capital in 1904. In terms of his art, Du Bois recalled, “he wrote his name so notably as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He succumbed in 1912, in his thirties. But what would the composer have made of his daughter’s decision to be in South Africa in the 1950s?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. This policy “seems to me the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she did not support with apartheid “in principle” and it “should be allowed to run its course, overseen by good-intentioned people of all races”. Were the composer more attuned to her father’s politics, or raised in the US under segregation, she may have reconsidered about this system. However, existence had shielded her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a British passport,” she stated, “and the authorities did not inquire me about my background.” Therefore, with her “fair” appearance (according to the magazine), she moved alongside white society, supported by their praise for her deceased parent. She presented about her father’s music at the Cape Town university and directed the national orchestra in the city, including the heroic third movement of her composition, named: “In memory of my Father.” While a accomplished player personally, she did not perform as the soloist in her piece. Rather, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the orchestra of the era performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, in her own words, she “may foster a transformation”. However, by that year, the situation collapsed. After authorities learned of her African heritage, she had to depart the land. Her British passport offered no defense, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or be jailed. She came home, embarrassed as the extent of her innocence was realized. “The lesson was a difficult one,” she lamented. Adding to her embarrassment was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Recurring Theme

While I reflected with these legacies, I perceived a familiar story. The story of being British until it’s challenged – that brings to mind troops of color who served for the UK throughout the second world war and lived only to be refused rightful benefits. And the Windrush generation,