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This talented musician always felt the weight of her father’s legacy. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the most famous UK artists of the 1900s, her name was cloaked in the long shadows of history.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I reflected on these legacies as I made arrangements to make the world premiere recording of her piano concerto from 1936. With its impassioned harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, her composition will provide audiences deep understanding into how she – a composer during war born in 1903 – imagined her existence as a woman of colour.

Legacy and Reality

However about shadows. One needs patience to acclimate, to see shapes as they truly exist, to tell reality from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to confront Avril’s past for some time.

I deeply hoped Avril to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, that held. The rustic British sounds of Samuel’s influence can be detected in numerous compositions, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to review the headings of her parent’s works to realize how he heard himself as both a flag bearer of UK romantic tradition and also a representative of the African diaspora.

This was where parent and child seemed to diverge.

The United States assessed the composer by the mastery of his art instead of the colour of his skin.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the prestigious music college, the composer – the son of a African father and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his African roots. When the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the young musician actively pursued him. He adapted the poet’s African Romances into music and the following year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral work that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, particularly among the Black community who felt indirect honor as white America evaluated the composer by the brilliance of his art rather than the colour of his skin.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Recognition did not temper his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he attended the First Pan African Conference in the UK where he met the Black American thinker WEB Du Bois and saw a variety of discussions, including on the mistreatment of the Black community there. He was an activist until the end. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders including the scholar and this leader, spoke publicly on racial equality, and even talked about issues of racism with the American leader during an invitation to the presidential residence in that year. In terms of his art, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so high as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in 1912, at 37 years old. But what would Samuel have thought of his child’s choice to work in this country in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Offspring of Renowned Musician expresses approval to S African Bias,” ran a headline in the Black American publication Jet magazine. Apartheid “seems to me the correct approach”, she informed Jet. When pushed to clarify, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with apartheid “fundamentally” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, overseen by well-meaning people of all races”. Had Avril been more in tune to her father’s politics, or from segregated America, she might have thought twice about the policy. However, existence had sheltered her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I hold a UK passport,” she stated, “and the officials never asked me about my race.” So, with her “light” skin (according to the magazine), she floated within European circles, buoyed up by their praise for her renowned family member. She presented about her parent’s compositions at the Cape Town university and directed the broadcasting ensemble in the city, including the bold final section of her concerto, subtitled: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a skilled pianist on her own, she avoided playing as the soloist in her work. Instead, she invariably directed as the leader; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

Avril hoped, in her own words, she “might bring a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents became aware of her Black ancestry, she had to depart the nation. Her British passport failed to safeguard her, the UK representative advised her to leave or be jailed. She came home, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her innocence dawned. “The lesson was a difficult one,” she stated. Compounding her humiliation was the 1955 publication of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her forced leaving from the country.

A Recurring Theme

As I sat with these memories, I perceived a recurring theme. The story of being British until you’re not – that brings to mind Black soldiers who fought on behalf of the British in the second world war and made it through but were not given their earned rewards. Including those from Windrush,