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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the weight of her parent’s legacy. Being the child of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the most famous English artists of the 1900s, the composer’s identity was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of history.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I contemplated these memories as I got ready to record the first-ever recording of Avril’s 1936 piano concerto. Boasting intense musical themes, soulful lyricism, and confident beats, this piece will grant audiences valuable perspective into how the composer – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – imagined her existence as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

Yet about legacies. It requires time to acclimate, to perceive forms as they really are, to distinguish truth from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to confront Avril’s past for some time.

I earnestly desired her to be her father’s daughter. To some extent, she was. The pastoral English palettes of her father’s impact can be detected in many of her works, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to review the titles of her parent’s works to understand how he heard himself as not only a flag bearer of English Romanticism as well as a advocate of the Black diaspora.

It was here that Samuel and Avril appeared to part ways.

American society evaluated Samuel by the mastery of his art as opposed to the colour of his skin.

Parental Heritage

While he was studying at the Royal College of Music, Samuel – the child of a parent from Sierra Leone and a British mother – started to lean into his African roots. When the Black American writer this literary figure came to London in the late 19th century, the 21-year-old composer was keen to meet him. He set Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the subsequent year adapted his verses for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, particularly among Black Americans who felt indirect honor as white America assessed his work by the quality of his art as opposed to the his race.

Principles and Actions

Success did not reduce Samuel’s politics. During that period, he was present at the pioneering African conference in the UK where he encountered the Black American thinker WEB Du Bois and saw a range of talks, such as the subjugation of African people in South Africa. He was an activist throughout his life. He sustained relationships with pioneers of civil rights including the scholar and this leader, spoke publicly on racial equality, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the US President while visiting to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he made his mark so prominently as a musician that it will endure.” He succumbed in the early 20th century, at 37 years old. Yet how might the composer have made of his child’s choice to travel to the African nation in the 1950s?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to S African Bias,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “seems to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with this policy “in principle” and it “could be left to work itself out, directed by well-meaning people of all races”. If Avril had been more aligned to her family’s principles, or from the US under segregation, she might have thought twice about apartheid. However, existence had sheltered her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a British passport,” she said, “and the officials did not inquire me about my race.” Thus, with her “porcelain-white” complexion (according to the magazine), she floated within European circles, supported by their praise for her late father. She gave a talk about her family’s work at the Cape Town university and led the broadcasting ensemble in that location, featuring the bold final section of her composition, titled: “In memory of my Father.” Although a confident pianist on her own, she never played as the soloist in her work. Instead, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

The composer aspired, in her own words, she “might bring a change”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. Once officials became aware of her mixed background, she had to depart the land. Her UK document failed to safeguard her, the UK representative recommended her departure or risk imprisonment. She came home, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her innocence was realized. “The realization was a hard one,” she stated. Adding to her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her sudden departure from that nation.

A Familiar Story

Upon contemplating with these legacies, I perceived a recurring theme. The account of holding UK citizenship until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind troops of color who fought on behalf of the UK throughout the World War II and made it through but were denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,