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This talented musician constantly experienced the weight of her family heritage. Being the child of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the best-known English artists of the early 20th century, Avril’s name was shrouded in the lingering obscurity of history.

The First Recording

Not long ago, I sat with these shadows as I got ready to record the first-ever recording of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Boasting intense musical themes, soulful lyricism, and bold rhythms, this piece will grant new listeners valuable perspective into how this artist – an artist in conflict born in 1903 – conceived of her existence as a woman of colour.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about legacies. It requires time to adjust, to recognize outlines as they truly exist, to separate fact from distortion, and I was reluctant to address Avril’s past for a period.

I had so wanted the composer to be her father’s daughter. To some extent, this was true. The pastoral English palettes of parental inspiration can be detected in several pieces, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the titles of her father’s compositions to understand how he viewed himself as not only a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition but a voice of the African heritage.

At this point parent and child seemed to diverge.

White America judged Samuel by the mastery of his compositions rather than the his racial background.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the Royal College of Music, the composer – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a white English mother – began embracing his heritage. Once the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in 1897, the 21-year-old composer was keen to meet him. He set Dunbar’s African Romances to music and the next year incorporated his poetry for a musical work, Dream Lovers. This was followed by 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, notably for Black Americans who felt indirect honor as white America assessed his work by the quality of his music rather than the colour of his skin.

Activism and Politics

Fame failed to diminish his activism. At the turn of the century, he attended the First Pan African Conference in the UK where he made the acquaintance of the Black American thinker this influential figure and witnessed a series of speeches, covering the mistreatment of the Black community there. He was a campaigner throughout his life. He kept connections with pioneers of civil rights including this intellectual and this leader, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even discussed issues of racism with the US President while visiting to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. Regarding his compositions, Du Bois recalled, “he made his mark so high as a composer that it will long be remembered.” He passed away in that year, aged 37. However, how would her father have reacted to his offspring’s move to work in this country in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to S African Bias,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “appeared to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with the system “fundamentally” and it “could be left to run its course, directed by benevolent residents of every background”. Had Avril been more in tune to her family’s principles, or raised in segregated America, she might have thought twice about this system. But life had protected her.

Background and Inexperience

“I have a UK passport,” she said, “and the authorities never asked me about my race.” Therefore, with her “porcelain-white” appearance (according to the magazine), she floated within European circles, supported by their acclaim for her late father. She delivered a lecture about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in that location, programming the inspiring part of her Piano Concerto, titled: “Dedicated to my Father.” While a confident pianist on her own, she did not perform as the soloist in her concerto. Instead, she always led as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

Avril hoped, in her own words, she “could introduce a change”. However, by that year, things fell apart. Once officials discovered her mixed background, she had to depart the country. Her British passport offered no defense, the UK representative advised her to leave or risk imprisonment. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her innocence dawned. “The lesson was a painful one,” she stated. Adding to her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these shadows, I felt a recurring theme. The account of identifying as British until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind troops of color who defended the UK in the global conflict and lived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,