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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually experienced the weight of her parent’s heritage. As the daughter of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among the best-known UK composers of the turn of the 20th century, the composer’s reputation was cloaked in the lingering obscurity of bygone eras.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I sat with these memories as I prepared to make the first-ever recording of her 1936 piano concerto. With its intense musical themes, expressive melodies, and confident beats, Avril’s work will grant audiences deep understanding into how the composer – an artist in conflict who entered the world in 1903 – imagined her world as a woman of colour.

Legacy and Reality

But here’s the thing about the past. It can take a while to adjust, to see shapes as they actually appear, to separate fact from misinterpretation, and I felt hesitant to confront the composer’s background for a while.

I had so wanted her to be her father’s daughter. Partially, this was true. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be heard in many of her works, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to look at the names of her parent’s works to realize how he viewed himself as not only a flag bearer of English Romanticism and also a voice of the African diaspora.

At this point parent and child began to differ.

The United States judged Samuel by the mastery of his music as opposed to the his racial background.

Parental Heritage

As a student at the prestigious music college, Samuel – the child of a African father and a Caucasian parent – started to lean into his African roots. Once the poet of color this literary figure visited the UK in the late 19th century, the aspiring artist was keen to meet him. He adapted this literary work as a composition and the subsequent year adapted his verses for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an international hit, particularly among African Americans who felt shared pride as the majority assessed his work by the brilliance of his music instead of the his background.

Activism and Politics

Recognition did not reduce his activism. During that period, he attended the initial Pan African gathering in London where he met the prominent scholar the renowned Du Bois and observed a variety of discussions, such as the oppression of the Black community there. He remained an advocate until the end. He kept connections with trailblazers for equality including Du Bois and Booker T Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even discussed matters of race with the American leader during an invitation to the White House in that year. Regarding his compositions, Du Bois recalled, “he made his mark so notably as a musician that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He succumbed in that year, at 37 years old. Yet how might Samuel have thought of his offspring’s move to be in the African nation in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Daughter of Famous Composer expresses approval to apartheid system,” appeared as a heading in the African American magazine Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. When asked to explain, she qualified her remarks: she did not support with this policy “in principle” and it “could be left to work itself out, directed by good-intentioned South Africans of diverse ethnicities”. Were the composer more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or born in the US under segregation, she may have reconsidered about the policy. However, existence had shielded her.

Identity and Naivety

“I have a UK passport,” she remarked, “and the officials did not inquire me about my ethnicity.” So, with her “fair” skin (according to the magazine), she traveled alongside white society, buoyed up by their praise for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and led the national orchestra in Johannesburg, programming the heroic third movement of her composition, subtitled: “In memory of my Father.” While a confident pianist herself, she never played as the featured artist in her piece. On the contrary, she always led as the leader; and so the orchestra of the era performed under her direction.

The composer aspired, according to her, she “might bring a shift”. Yet in the mid-1950s, things fell apart. When government agents discovered her mixed background, she had to depart the country. Her citizenship failed to safeguard her, the UK representative recommended her departure or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, feeling great shame as the scale of her inexperience became clear. “This experience was a hard one,” she expressed. Adding to her disgrace was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her forced leaving from that nation.

A Recurring Theme

Upon contemplating with these memories, I felt a recurring theme. The story of identifying as British until you’re not – that brings to mind African-descended soldiers who defended the English during the World War II and lived only to be not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,