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Avril Coleridge-Taylor always bore the weight of her family legacy. Being the child of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a leading the most famous UK artists of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s name was enveloped in the lingering obscurity of history.

The First Recording

Earlier this year, I contemplated these memories as I prepared to produce the world premiere recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. Boasting intense musical themes, soulful lyricism, and valiant rhythms, this piece will grant new listeners fascinating insight into how the composer – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – conceived of her existence as a artist with mixed heritage.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about legacies. It can take a while to adapt, to recognize outlines as they actually appear, to distinguish truth from misrepresentation, and I had been afraid to face Avril’s past for a period.

I earnestly desired her to be her father’s daughter. Partially, she was. The pastoral English palettes of her father’s impact can be heard in many of her works, including From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only examine the headings of her father’s compositions to understand how he viewed himself as both a champion of UK romantic tradition as well as a advocate of the African heritage.

It was here that Samuel and Avril seemed to diverge.

American society judged Samuel by the mastery of his music rather than the his racial background.

Family Background

As a student at the prestigious music college, her father – the offspring of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – started to lean into his African roots. When the poet of color Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the aspiring artist eagerly sought him out. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the following year used the poet’s words for a stage piece, Dream Lovers. This was followed by the choral work that established his reputation: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’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 art as opposed to the his race.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Recognition did not temper his beliefs. At the turn of the century, he was present at the pioneering African conference in London where he encountered the prominent scholar this influential figure and saw a series of speeches, such as the subjugation of the Black community there. He remained an advocate to his final days. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders like Du Bois and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on equality for all, and even discussed racial problems with the US President while visiting to the presidential residence in the early 1900s. In terms of his art, Du Bois recalled, “he wrote his name so prominently as a musician that it will endure.” He died in 1912, in his thirties. Yet how might Samuel have made of his child’s choice to work in South Africa in the 1950s?

Conflict and Policy

“Offspring of Renowned Musician shows support to apartheid system,” declared a title in the African American magazine Jet magazine. Apartheid “struck me as the correct approach”, Avril told Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she was not in favor with this policy “as a concept” and it “should be allowed to resolve itself, directed by good-intentioned people of every background”. Were the composer more in tune to her father’s politics, or raised in segregated America, she might have thought twice about this system. However, existence had sheltered her.

Background and Inexperience

“I possess a UK passport,” she remarked, “and the officials never asked me about my background.” Therefore, with her “light” skin (as described), she traveled within European circles, lifted by their admiration for her deceased parent. She delivered a lecture about her father’s music at the Cape Town university and directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra in Johannesburg, programming the bold final section of her Piano Concerto, titled: “In remembrance of my Father.” While a accomplished player on her own, she did not perform as the featured artist in her concerto. On the contrary, she always led as the conductor; and so the orchestra of the era played under her baton.

Avril hoped, as she stated, she “might bring a transformation”. Yet in the mid-1950s, the situation collapsed. After authorities became aware of her African heritage, she was forced to leave the nation. Her citizenship offered no defense, the diplomatic official recommended her departure or risk imprisonment. She returned to England, feeling great shame as the extent of her naivety dawned. “The lesson was a hard one,” she expressed. Increasing her disgrace was the printing that year of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Familiar Story

While I reflected with these memories, I felt a familiar story. The account of identifying as British until it’s challenged – one that calls to mind troops of color who fought on behalf of the UK throughout the global conflict and lived only to be refused rightful benefits. And the Windrush generation,