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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually felt the burden of her father’s legacy. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the prominent UK artists of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s reputation was shrouded in the long shadows of the past.

A World Premiere

In recent months, I reflected on these legacies as I got ready to make the first-ever recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. Featuring intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, Avril’s work will offer music lovers deep understanding into how this artist – a wartime composer who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her existence as a artist with mixed heritage.

Shadows and Truth

However about the past. It can take a while to adapt, to see shapes as they actually appear, to tell reality from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to face the composer’s background for a while.

I had so wanted her to be a reflection of her father. To some extent, this was true. The rustic British sounds of her father’s impact can be detected in numerous compositions, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the headings of her father’s compositions to understand how he viewed himself as not only a standard-bearer of British Romantic style as well as a advocate of the African heritage.

It was here that Samuel and Avril seemed to diverge.

The United States judged Samuel by the mastery of his art rather than the his ethnicity.

Family Background

While he was studying at the renowned institution, Samuel – the son of a African father and a Caucasian parent – turned toward his African roots. Once the Black American writer this literary figure came to London in the late 19th century, the 21-year-old composer eagerly sought him out. He adapted the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the next year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, particularly among Black Americans who felt vicarious pride as American society judged Samuel by the brilliance of his art instead of the his background.

Principles and Actions

Success did not temper his activism. In 1900, he participated in the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he met the African American intellectual the renowned Du Bois and saw a variety of discussions, including on the subjugation of the Black community there. He was an activist throughout his life. He maintained ties with trailblazers for equality like Du Bois and this leader, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even talked about racial problems with the American leader on a trip to the White House in the early 1900s. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so notably as a creative artist that it will long be remembered.” He died in the early 20th century, aged 37. But what would Samuel have thought of his child’s choice to work in the African nation in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to apartheid system,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. Apartheid “struck me as the right policy”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she didn’t agree with apartheid “in principle” and it “could be left to resolve itself, directed by benevolent residents of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more attuned to her father’s politics, or born in segregated America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. However, existence had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a English document,” she said, “and the government agents failed to question me about my background.” So, with her “light” complexion (according to the magazine), she floated among the Europeans, lifted by their praise for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and led the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in Johannesburg, programming the heroic third movement of her concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Although a accomplished player on her own, she never played as the lead performer in her piece. Rather, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble played under her baton.

Avril hoped, as she stated, she “could introduce a transformation”. However, by that year, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents discovered her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the nation. Her citizenship offered no defense, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or face arrest. She went back to the UK, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her innocence dawned. “The lesson was a painful one,” she lamented. Increasing her embarrassment was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

As I sat with these legacies, I perceived a known narrative. The account of identifying as British until you’re not – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the UK in the global conflict and made it through but were refused rightful benefits. And the Windrush generation,