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This talented musician always experienced the burden of her family heritage. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the prominent UK artists of the 1900s, the composer’s reputation was cloaked in the long shadows of bygone eras.

The First Recording

In recent months, I reflected on these legacies as I got ready to record the inaugural album of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Boasting impassioned harmonies, soulful lyricism, and bold rhythms, this piece will offer new listeners valuable perspective into how the composer – an artist in conflict who entered the world in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

However about shadows. It can take a while to adjust, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from distortion, and I was reluctant to confront Avril’s past for a while.

I had so wanted the composer to be following in her father’s footsteps. To some extent, that held. The pastoral English palettes of Samuel’s influence can be detected in several pieces, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the titles of her father’s compositions to understand how he identified as both a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition but a voice of the Black diaspora.

It was here that father and daughter seemed to diverge.

American society evaluated Samuel by the brilliance of his music rather than the his racial background.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the renowned institution, Samuel – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – turned toward his African roots. Once the African American poet this literary figure came to London in that era, the 21-year-old composer actively pursued him. He set the poet’s African Romances to music and the next year incorporated his poetry for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral composition that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel’s Hiawatha was an global success, notably for the Black community who felt shared pride as the majority assessed his work by the brilliance of his music instead of the his race.

Activism and Politics

Recognition failed to diminish his activism. In 1900, he participated in the pioneering African conference in England where he met the prominent scholar WEB Du Bois and witnessed a variety of discussions, covering the oppression of African people in South Africa. He was an activist throughout his life. He maintained ties with pioneers of civil rights such as this intellectual and this leader, gave addresses on racial equality, and even talked about matters of race with President Theodore Roosevelt during an invitation to the White House in that year. Regarding his compositions, Du Bois recalled, “he wrote his name so high as a creative artist that it will endure.” He succumbed in that year, in his thirties. However, how would Samuel have made of his daughter’s decision to travel to the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist expresses approval to apartheid system,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. The system “appeared to me the appropriate course”, the composer stated Jet. Upon further questioning, she revised her statement: she was not in favor with this policy “fundamentally” and it “could be left to work itself out, guided by benevolent South Africans of every background”. If Avril had been more attuned to her parent’s beliefs, or from the US under segregation, she might have thought twice about this system. Yet her life had sheltered her.

Identity and Naivety

“I hold a English document,” she remarked, “and the authorities failed to question me about my background.” Thus, with her “light” appearance (as described), she moved within European circles, lifted by their admiration for her late father. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the Cape Town university and directed the national orchestra in the city, programming the bold final section of her concerto, titled: “In memory of my Father.” While a accomplished player herself, she did not perform as the featured artist in her piece. Rather, she always led as the leader; and so the segregated ensemble played under her baton.

She desired, in her own words, she “could introduce a change”. However, by that year, the situation collapsed. After authorities learned of her Black ancestry, she had to depart the country. Her UK document didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official recommended her departure or face arrest. She returned to England, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her naivety was realized. “The realization was a hard one,” she stated. Compounding her embarrassment was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Common Narrative

As I sat with these shadows, I perceived a recurring theme. The account of holding UK citizenship until you’re not – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who defended the British throughout the second world war and survived only to be denied their due compensation. And the Windrush generation,