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This talented musician always bore the pressure of her family heritage. As the offspring of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the prominent English musicians of the turn of the 20th century, her identity was shrouded in the lingering obscurity of history.

An Inaugural Recording

In recent months, I sat with these memories as I made arrangements to produce the inaugural album of the composer’s piano concerto from 1936. With its impassioned harmonies, expressive melodies, and bold rhythms, this piece will provide music lovers fascinating insight into how this artist – a wartime composer who entered the world in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a female composer of color.

Past and Present

But here’s the thing about the past. One needs patience to acclimate, to see shapes as they actually appear, to tell reality from misinterpretation, and I had been afraid to confront her history for a while.

I deeply hoped her to be following in her father’s footsteps. Partially, that held. 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). However, one need only look at the headings of her parent’s works to understand how he identified as not just a standard-bearer of British Romantic style and also a voice of the Black diaspora.

This was where parent and child began to differ.

The United States assessed the composer by the mastery of his compositions rather than the colour of his skin.

Samuel’s African Roots

As a student at the Royal College of Music, her father – the child of a parent from Sierra Leone and a British mother – started to lean into his background. At the time the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar arrived in England in that era, the young musician was keen to meet him. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the subsequent year used the poet’s words for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral piece that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, the piece was an global success, particularly among African Americans who felt vicarious pride as the majority judged Samuel by the excellence of his compositions instead of the his background.

Principles and Actions

Recognition did not reduce Samuel’s politics. During that period, he attended the First Pan African Conference in England where he made the acquaintance of the African American intellectual WEB Du Bois and saw a series of speeches, covering the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He was an activist throughout his life. He kept connections with early civil rights leaders such as this intellectual and the educator Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even talked about matters of race with President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to the presidential residence in 1904. As for his music, the scholar reflected, “he made his mark so notably as a musician that it will long be remembered.” He succumbed in that year, in his thirties. Yet how might Samuel have reacted to his child’s choice to travel to this country in the that decade?

Issues and Stance

“Child of Celebrated Artist shows support to apartheid system,” declared a title in the Black American publication Jet magazine. This policy “appeared to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. When pushed to clarify, she qualified her remarks: she didn’t agree with the system “as a concept” and it “could be left to run its course, guided by well-meaning people of all races”. If Avril had been more aligned to her father’s politics, or raised in segregated America, she may have reconsidered about the policy. But life had shielded her.

Background and Inexperience

“I hold a English document,” she remarked, “and the officials failed to question me about my ethnicity.” Therefore, with her “fair” complexion (as described), she traveled among the Europeans, buoyed up by their praise for her late father. She gave a talk about her father’s music at the Cape Town university and conducted the broadcasting ensemble in that location, including the bold final section of her composition, subtitled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a skilled pianist herself, she did not perform as the soloist in her piece. Rather, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the orchestra of the era performed under her direction.

She desired, according to her, she “could introduce a change”. Yet in the mid-1950s, circumstances deteriorated. Once officials became aware of her mixed background, she had to depart the nation. Her British passport didn’t protect her, the diplomatic official recommended her departure or face arrest. She went back to the UK, deeply ashamed as the magnitude of her inexperience became clear. “This experience was a hard one,” she lamented. Increasing her embarrassment was the printing that year of her unfortunate magazine feature, a year after her unceremonious exit from the country.

A Familiar Story

As I sat with these shadows, I felt a familiar story. The story of holding UK citizenship until it’s revoked – one that calls to mind Black soldiers who defended the British throughout the World War II and lived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,