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The composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor continually bore the pressure of her family reputation. As the daughter of the celebrated composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, one of the best-known British composers of the turn of the 20th century, Avril’s reputation was cloaked in the long shadows of history.

A World Premiere

Earlier this year, I sat with these legacies as I got ready to record the first-ever recording of Avril’s piano concerto from 1936. Boasting intense musical themes, heartfelt tunes, and confident beats, her composition will grant music lovers fascinating insight into how she – a composer during war who entered the world in 1903 – conceived of her reality as a woman of colour.

Shadows and Truth

However about legacies. It requires time to adapt, to perceive forms as they really are, to separate fact from misinterpretation, and I was reluctant to confront her history for some time.

I earnestly desired the composer to be her father’s daughter. To some extent, that held. The rustic British sounds of her father’s impact can be detected in several pieces, such as From the Hills (1934) and Sussex Landscape (1940). However, one need only review the titles of her family’s music to see how he identified as not only a standard-bearer of UK romantic tradition but a voice of the African heritage.

At this point Samuel and Avril seemed to diverge.

White America evaluated Samuel by the excellence of his music instead of the his racial background.

Family Background

While he was studying at the prestigious music college, her father – the child of a parent from Sierra Leone and a Caucasian parent – began embracing his heritage. Once the African American poet the renowned Dunbar came to London in 1897, the 21-year-old composer eagerly sought him out. He adapted Dunbar’s African Romances into music and the next year incorporated his poetry for an opera, Dream Lovers. Then came the choral composition that made him famous: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.

Drawing from the poet Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, this composition was an international hit, particularly among African Americans who felt vicarious pride as the majority judged Samuel by the brilliance of his compositions as opposed to the his race.

Advocacy and Beliefs

Recognition did not temper his beliefs. In 1900, he was present at the pioneering African conference in England where he met the African American intellectual this influential figure and observed a series of speeches, including on the mistreatment of African people in South Africa. He remained an advocate to his final days. He kept connections with pioneers of civil rights such as the scholar and Booker T Washington, spoke publicly on ending discrimination, and even engaged in dialogue on racial problems with the US President while visiting to the White House in 1904. In terms of his art, reminisced Du Bois, “he wrote his name so high as a creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.” He passed away in 1912, in his thirties. But what would her father have thought of his child’s choice to work in the African nation in the mid-20th century?

Controversy and Apartheid

“Daughter of Famous Composer gives OK to apartheid system,” declared a title in the community journal Jet magazine. The system “seems to me the right policy”, the composer stated Jet. When asked to explain, she backtracked: she was not in favor with this policy “fundamentally” and it “could be left to resolve itself, guided by well-meaning residents of every background”. Had Avril been more in tune to her father’s politics, or raised in segregated America, she could have hesitated about this system. Yet her life had protected her.

Heritage and Innocence

“I have a English document,” she remarked, “and the government agents never asked me about my background.” Thus, with her “fair” appearance (as Jet put it), she floated alongside white society, supported by their acclaim for her late father. She delivered a lecture about her parent’s compositions at the educational institution and led the broadcasting ensemble in that location, featuring the inspiring part of her composition, named: “In remembrance of my Father.” Even though a accomplished player on her own, she avoided playing as the soloist in her concerto. On the contrary, she consistently conducted as the maestro; and so the segregated ensemble followed her lead.

Avril hoped, according to her, she “could introduce a transformation”. But by 1954, circumstances deteriorated. When government agents discovered her African heritage, she had to depart the nation. Her citizenship offered no defense, the UK representative urged her to go or risk imprisonment. She went back to the UK, embarrassed as the scale of her inexperience became clear. “The realization was a difficult one,” she lamented. Adding to her humiliation was the release in 1955 of her controversial discussion, a year after her unceremonious exit from South Africa.

A Recurring Theme

Upon contemplating with these legacies, I sensed a familiar story. The story of being British until you’re not – one that calls to mind troops of color who fought on behalf of the UK throughout the World War II and lived only to be not given their earned rewards. Along with the Windrush era,