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Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly bore the pressure of her father’s legacy. As the daughter of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known British artists of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s identity was enveloped in the long shadows of the past.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I reflected on these shadows as I prepared to make the inaugural album of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. With its emotional harmonies, expressive melodies, and confident beats, her composition will provide new listeners deep understanding into how the composer – a wartime composer who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her world as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about shadows. It can take a while to acclimate, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to separate fact from misrepresentation, and I felt hesitant to confront the composer’s background for a while.

I had so wanted her to be a reflection of her father. Partially, she was. The pastoral English palettes of parental inspiration can be detected in numerous compositions, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to review the headings of her father’s compositions to see how he identified as both a champion of UK romantic tradition but a advocate of the Black diaspora.

It was here that parent and child began to differ.

White America judged Samuel by the mastery of his music instead of the his ethnicity.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the renowned institution, her father – the son of a African father and a British mother – started to lean into his African roots. When the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in 1897, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He composed the poet’s African Romances into music and the next year adapted his verses for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral composition that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an international hit, particularly among the Black community who felt indirect honor as the majority assessed his work by the excellence of his compositions rather than the his race.

Principles and Actions

Success did not temper his activism. In 1900, he attended the First Pan African Conference in the UK where he made the acquaintance of the Black American thinker the renowned Du Bois and witnessed a range of talks, including on the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He was an activist throughout his life. He maintained ties with trailblazers for equality such as Du Bois and Booker T Washington, spoke publicly on equality for all, and even talked about matters of race with President Theodore Roosevelt during an invitation to the White House in the early 1900s. As for his music, the scholar reflected, “he wrote his name so high as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He died in the early 20th century, in his thirties. Yet how might her father have made of his daughter’s decision to work in this country in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to South African policy,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the appropriate course”, she informed Jet. When asked to explain, she revised her statement: she did not support with this policy “as a concept” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, directed by benevolent South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more attuned to her family’s principles, or from Jim Crow America, she could have hesitated about the policy. But life had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I have a English document,” she said, “and the government agents never asked me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “fair” complexion (as Jet put it), she moved among the Europeans, lifted by their acclaim for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in the city, programming the bold final section of her concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” While a accomplished player on her own, she avoided playing as the featured artist in her concerto. Rather, she invariably directed as the conductor; and so the segregated ensemble played under her baton.

The composer aspired, according to her, she “could introduce a transformation”. However, by that year, circumstances deteriorated. After authorities became aware of her mixed background, she could no longer stay the land. Her UK document failed to safeguard her, the British high commissioner recommended her departure or face arrest. She returned to England, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her inexperience dawned. “This experience was a hard one,” she stated. Increasing her disgrace was the 1955 publication of her controversial discussion, a year after her sudden departure from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

While I reflected with these memories, I sensed a recurring theme. The story of being British until you’re not – that brings to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the British in the second world war and lived only to be refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,