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Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly experienced the burden of her family legacy. Being the child of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known British musicians of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s identity was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of history.

An Inaugural Recording

Earlier this year, I reflected on these memories as I got ready to make the inaugural album of Avril’s 1936 piano concerto. Featuring emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, Avril’s work will offer music lovers deep understanding into how she – a wartime composer born in 1903 – envisioned her reality as a woman of colour.

Legacy and Reality

Yet about legacies. One needs patience to adapt, to see shapes as they really are, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to face Avril’s past for a while.

I had so wanted Avril to be her father’s daughter. To some extent, she was. The pastoral English palettes of Samuel’s influence can be heard in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to examine the titles of her father’s compositions to realize how he heard himself as not only a flag bearer of English Romanticism and also a representative of the Black diaspora.

At this point parent and child appeared to part ways.

American society assessed the composer by the mastery of his music as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Samuel’s African Roots

While he was studying at the renowned institution, the composer – the offspring of a parent from Sierra Leone and a white English mother – began embracing his African roots. Once the poet of color this literary figure visited the UK in the late 19th century, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He set the poet’s African Romances as a composition and the following year used the poet’s words for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral work that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, notably for the Black community who felt shared pride as white America assessed his work by the excellence of his compositions instead of the colour of his skin.

Principles and Actions

Success did not temper his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he participated in the First Pan African Conference in the UK where he met the African American intellectual WEB Du Bois and saw a range of talks, including on the oppression of the Black community there. He remained an advocate to his final days. He kept connections with trailblazers for equality such as this intellectual and Booker T Washington, spoke publicly on equality for all, and even engaged in dialogue on matters of race with the US President on a trip to the US capital in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he established his reputation so prominently as a musician that it will endure.” He succumbed in 1912, in his thirties. However, how would the composer have reacted to his daughter’s decision to work in South Africa in the that decade?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Offspring of Renowned Musician expresses approval to apartheid system,” ran a headline in the community journal Jet magazine. Apartheid “struck me as the correct approach”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she backtracked: she did not support with this policy “in principle” and it “could be left to run its course, guided by well-meaning South Africans of all races”. Were the composer more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in Jim Crow America, she might have thought twice about this system. Yet her life had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I have a British passport,” she remarked, “and the government agents did not inquire me about my background.” Therefore, with her “porcelain-white” complexion (according to the magazine), she traveled alongside white society, supported by their acclaim for her deceased parent. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the University of Cape Town and directed the broadcasting ensemble in that location, including the heroic third movement of her composition, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a skilled pianist personally, she avoided playing as the lead performer in her piece. Rather, she always led as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra followed her lead.

She desired, in her own words, she “may foster a transformation”. But by 1954, the situation collapsed. Once officials learned of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the nation. Her UK document failed to safeguard her, the British high commissioner advised her to leave or risk imprisonment. She came home, embarrassed as the scale of her naivety dawned. “The realization was a painful one,” she stated. Adding to her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from the country.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these legacies, I felt a known narrative. The story of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – that brings to mind Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the British in the global conflict and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,