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Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly experienced the pressure of her family heritage. As the daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known British artists of the early 20th century, her identity was cloaked in the deep shadows of history.

A World Premiere

In recent months, I sat with these shadows as I prepared to make the first-ever recording of her piano concerto from 1936. Boasting emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, this piece will grant music lovers deep understanding into how this artist – a wartime composer born in 1903 – envisioned her world as a artist with mixed heritage.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about the past. It requires time to adapt, to perceive forms as they actually appear, to tell reality from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to face Avril’s past for a period.

I had so wanted the composer to be her father’s daughter. In some ways, this was true. The pastoral English palettes of parental inspiration can be heard in many of her works, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only look at the titles of her family’s music to see how he identified as not just a champion of UK romantic tradition as well as a voice of the Black diaspora.

It was here that parent and child began to differ.

The United States judged Samuel by the brilliance of his art instead of the his ethnicity.

Samuel’s African Roots

During his studies at the renowned institution, the composer – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his heritage. Once the poet of color Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the young musician was keen to meet him. He composed this literary work as a composition and the following year incorporated his poetry for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral piece that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, notably for Black Americans who felt shared pride as white America assessed his work by the brilliance of his music instead of the his background.

Activism and Politics

Success failed to diminish Samuel’s politics. At the turn of the century, he was present at the initial Pan African gathering in the UK where he met the Black American thinker the renowned Du Bois and saw a series of speeches, including on the mistreatment of Black South Africans. He remained an advocate throughout his life. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders like the scholar and this leader, delivered his own speeches on racial equality, and even discussed issues of racism with the American leader while visiting to the White House in that year. In terms of his art, Du Bois recalled, “he wrote his name so notably as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He died in that year, in his thirties. However, how would Samuel have reacted to his offspring’s move to work in South Africa in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist gives OK to apartheid system,” declared a title in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the appropriate course”, Avril told Jet. Upon further questioning, she backtracked: she was not in favor with this policy “in principle” and it “could be left to work itself out, overseen by well-meaning residents of diverse ethnicities”. If Avril had been more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in the US under segregation, she may have reconsidered about this system. However, existence had shielded her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a UK passport,” she said, “and the officials never asked me about my ethnicity.” Thus, with her “fair” appearance (as described), she traveled alongside white society, supported by their admiration for her late father. She gave a talk about her father’s music at the University of Cape Town and directed the national orchestra in Johannesburg, featuring the inspiring part of her concerto, named: “In remembrance of my Father.” Although a skilled pianist on her own, she did not perform as the featured artist in her concerto. Instead, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra played under her baton.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “may foster a transformation”. However, by that year, the situation collapsed. After authorities learned of her Black ancestry, she could no longer stay the land. Her UK document didn’t protect her, the British high commissioner urged her to go or be jailed. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the scale of her innocence dawned. “The realization was a painful one,” she lamented. Increasing her disgrace was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Familiar Story

Upon contemplating with these shadows, I perceived a known narrative. The account of identifying as British until you’re not – one that calls to mind African-descended soldiers who fought on behalf of the English during the World War II and lived only to be refused rightful benefits. Including those from Windrush,