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Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the pressure of her family reputation. As the daughter of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the best-known English composers of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s identity was shrouded in the long shadows of history.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I sat with these legacies as I got ready to produce the first-ever recording of her piano concerto from 1936. With its impassioned harmonies, soulful lyricism, and bold rhythms, Avril’s work will provide audiences deep understanding into how she – a wartime composer born in 1903 – imagined her existence as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about shadows. One needs patience to adapt, to see shapes as they actually appear, to separate fact from distortion, and I was reluctant to address the composer’s background for a period.

I deeply hoped the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. In some ways, she was. The rustic British sounds of parental inspiration can be observed in many of her works, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the headings of her parent’s works to realize how he identified as both a standard-bearer of British Romantic style but a advocate of the Black diaspora.

This was where father and daughter 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 prestigious music college, her father – the child of a African father and a white English mother – started to lean into his heritage. Once the African American poet this literary figure arrived in England in that era, the young musician was keen to meet him. He set Dunbar’s African Romances to music and the following year used the poet’s words for a musical work, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an international hit, particularly among Black Americans who felt indirect honor as American society judged Samuel by the excellence of his music rather than the his background.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Fame failed to diminish his beliefs. In 1900, he attended the pioneering African conference in England where he made the acquaintance of the Black American thinker WEB Du Bois and witnessed a range of talks, such as the oppression of Black South Africans. He remained an advocate until the end. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders such as this intellectual and the educator Washington, gave addresses on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on matters of race with the US President on a trip to the US capital in 1904. As for his music, Du Bois recalled, “he established his reputation so notably as a composer that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He died in the early 20th century, at 37 years old. Yet how might Samuel have made of his offspring’s move to be in this country in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to S African Bias,” declared a title in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “struck me as the correct approach”, the composer stated Jet. When pushed to clarify, she revised her statement: she did not support with apartheid “fundamentally” and it “ought to be permitted to run its course, directed by well-meaning residents of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in the US under segregation, she may have reconsidered about the policy. Yet her life had shielded her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a UK passport,” she stated, “and the government agents failed to question me about my ethnicity.” Therefore, with her “fair” complexion (as Jet put it), she floated among the Europeans, lifted by their admiration for her renowned family member. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and led the broadcasting ensemble in Johannesburg, including the heroic third movement of her concerto, named: “In remembrance of my Father.” Although a skilled pianist herself, she avoided playing as the lead performer in her concerto. Rather, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

She desired, in her own words, she “might bring a transformation”. But by 1954, the situation collapsed. After authorities learned of her Black ancestry, she had to depart the land. Her UK document failed to safeguard her, the UK representative advised her to leave or be jailed. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her naivety was realized. “The lesson was a hard one,” she stated. Compounding her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her unceremonious exit from that nation.

A Recurring Theme

As I sat with these shadows, I sensed a familiar story. The account of holding UK citizenship until you’re not – that brings to mind Black soldiers who defended the UK throughout the second world war and lived only to be refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,