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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly bore the weight of her parent’s legacy. As the daughter of the renowned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the prominent English composers of the 1900s, the composer’s identity was shrouded in the long shadows of the past.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I contemplated these legacies as I got ready to produce the world premiere recording of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. Featuring intense musical themes, soulful lyricism, and valiant rhythms, her composition will offer audiences valuable perspective into how she – a wartime composer originating from the early 1900s – conceived of her reality as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about the past. It requires time to acclimate, to recognize outlines as they really are, to separate fact from distortion, and I had been afraid to confront the composer’s background for a while.

I deeply hoped the composer to be her father’s daughter. To some extent, she was. The rustic British sounds of her father’s impact can be observed in numerous compositions, for example From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). But you only have to review the headings of her family’s music to realize how he heard himself as not only a standard-bearer of British Romantic style but a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that father and daughter appeared to part ways.

White America assessed the composer by the excellence of his music rather than the his ethnicity.

Samuel’s African Roots

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, Samuel – the child of a Sierra Leonean father and a British mother – began embracing his background. When the poet of color Paul Laurence Dunbar visited the UK in that era, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances as a composition and the subsequent year adapted his verses for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral piece that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, particularly among African Americans who felt shared pride as the majority assessed his work by the quality of his art as opposed to the his background.

Principles and Actions

Success did not reduce Samuel’s politics. At the turn of the century, he attended the pioneering African conference in London where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual WEB Du Bois and witnessed a series of speeches, such as the mistreatment of the Black community there. He remained an advocate throughout his life. He sustained relationships with early civil rights leaders such as Du Bois and this leader, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even discussed matters of race with the US President while visiting to the US capital in that year. As for his music, reminisced Du Bois, “he established his reputation so notably as a musician that it will endure.” He passed away in the early 20th century, at 37 years old. However, how would Samuel have reacted to his daughter’s decision to work in this country in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Child of Celebrated Artist shows support to S African Bias,” appeared as a heading in the Black American publication Jet magazine. Apartheid “seems to me the correct approach”, the composer stated Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she did not support with this policy “fundamentally” and it “should be allowed to run its course, overseen by well-meaning people of every background”. Were the composer more aligned to her parent’s beliefs, or raised in the US under segregation, she could have hesitated about apartheid. Yet her life had protected her.

Identity and Naivety

“I possess a English document,” she remarked, “and the officials never asked me about my background.” Thus, with her “fair” appearance (as described), she traveled among the Europeans, buoyed up by their praise for her late father. She gave a talk about her parent’s compositions at the University of Cape Town and directed the national orchestra in Johannesburg, programming the bold final section of her Piano Concerto, titled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Although a skilled pianist on her own, she did not perform as the lead performer in her work. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the orchestra of the era performed under her direction.

She desired, as she stated, she “may foster a transformation”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. After authorities discovered her African heritage, she was forced to leave the land. Her UK document offered no defense, the diplomatic official advised her to leave or be jailed. She came home, feeling great shame as the magnitude of her innocence became clear. “The lesson was a difficult one,” she expressed. Compounding her embarrassment was the release in 1955 of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her sudden departure from South Africa.

A Recurring Theme

While I reflected with these memories, I sensed a recurring theme. The story of identifying as British until it’s challenged – that brings to mind Black soldiers who defended the UK during the global conflict and lived only to be refused rightful benefits. Along with the Windrush era,