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Avril Coleridge-Taylor constantly experienced the weight of her father’s legacy. As the offspring of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known English musicians of the 1900s, her reputation was enveloped in the deep shadows of bygone eras.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I sat with these shadows as I prepared to record the first-ever recording of her concerto for piano composed in 1936. Boasting emotional harmonies, heartfelt tunes, and valiant rhythms, this piece will grant music lovers deep understanding into how she – an artist in conflict originating from the early 1900s – conceived of her world as a female composer of color.

Shadows and Truth

But here’s the thing about the past. It can take a while to acclimate, to perceive forms as they truly exist, to tell reality from misrepresentation, and I was reluctant to address the composer’s background for a while.

I earnestly desired the composer to be a reflection of her father. In some ways, she was. The idyllic English tones of Samuel’s influence can be detected in many of her works, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). Yet it suffices to examine the titles of her parent’s works to see how he identified as both a champion of English Romanticism as well as a voice of the African diaspora.

It was here that father and daughter began to differ.

White America judged Samuel by the mastery of his music as opposed to the his racial background.

Family Background

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, the composer – the son of a Sierra Leonean father and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his background. At the time the Black American writer the renowned Dunbar came to London in 1897, the 21-year-old composer eagerly sought him out. He composed Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the subsequent year incorporated his poetry for a musical work, Dream Lovers. Subsequently arrived the choral work that put Samuel on the map: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Based on this American writer’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an global success, particularly among African Americans who felt indirect honor as American society assessed his work by the brilliance of his compositions instead of the colour of his skin.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Fame failed to diminish his beliefs. During that period, he participated in the First Pan African Conference in London where he met the Black American thinker WEB Du Bois and saw a series of speeches, including on the oppression of Black South Africans. He was an activist to his final days. He maintained ties with early civil rights leaders such as the scholar and this leader, delivered his own speeches on equality for all, and even discussed issues of racism with President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to the presidential residence in 1904. In terms of his art, Du Bois recalled, “he made his mark so notably as a musician that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in the early 20th century, aged 37. But what would her father have reacted to his offspring’s move to travel to this country in the that decade?

Conflict and Policy

“Offspring of Renowned Musician shows support to South African policy,” ran a headline in the African American magazine Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the right policy”, she informed Jet. Upon further questioning, she qualified her remarks: she was not in favor with the system “in principle” and it “could be left to resolve itself, guided by good-intentioned South Africans of all races”. Were the composer more in tune to her family’s principles, or from Jim Crow America, she could have hesitated about apartheid. Yet her life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I possess a British passport,” she remarked, “and the authorities never asked me about my race.” Thus, with her “fair” appearance (as Jet put it), she floated among the Europeans, lifted by their praise for her renowned family member. She delivered a lecture about her family’s work at the educational institution and conducted the national orchestra in that location, featuring the inspiring part of her Piano Concerto, titled: “Dedicated to my Father.” Even though a confident pianist herself, she did not perform as the featured artist in her concerto. On the contrary, she invariably directed as the maestro; and so the apartheid orchestra performed under her direction.

She desired, according to her, she “may foster a transformation”. But by 1954, the situation collapsed. After authorities became aware of her African heritage, she could no longer stay the country. Her British passport failed to safeguard her, the UK representative urged her to go or be jailed. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the magnitude of her inexperience dawned. “This experience was a hard one,” she lamented. Increasing her humiliation was the printing that year of her ill-fated Jet interview, a year after her unceremonious exit from that nation.

A Common Narrative

As I sat with these shadows, I felt a known narrative. The narrative of holding UK citizenship until you’re not – one that calls to mind troops of color who served for the British during the second world war and lived only to be denied their due compensation. Including those from Windrush,