Biography
African American composer, arranger, and performer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson moved fluidly among classical, jazz, and pop idioms, producing chamber and keyboard pieces alongside expansive orchestral and choral scores. Born June 14, 1932, he is listed by the New York Public Library, custodian of his papers, as having entered the world in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, though other accounts place the event in Manhattan. His mother worked as a piano instructor and church organist, and she named him for composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. He spent at least part of his childhood in New York, where he attended the High School of Music and Art, studied composition and conducting, and shared the LaGuardia Prize in 1949. After two years majoring in education at New York University, he transferred to the Manhattan School of Music to work with Vittorio Giannini and Charles Mills, supplementing those lessons with study under Earl Kim at Princeton University and completing a master’s degree there in 1953; among his classmates were jazz artists Max Roach, Herbie Mann, and Randy Weston. Perkinson performed jazz piano in Roach’s ensemble and collaborated with other leading jazz figures, then pursued conducting training in the Netherlands and Austria during the early 1960s.
In 1965 he helped establish and led the Symphony of the New World, the first racially integrated classical orchestra in the United States, later becoming its music director. He also served as music director for the American Theater Lab and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, creating the ballet For Bird, With Love for the latter company. His film scores include A Warm December (1973), Thomasine & Bushrod (1974), and Mean Johnny Barrows (1976), and he contributed music to episodes of the television series Room 222. Perkinson supplied pop arrangements for Marvin Gaye and Harry Belafonte; during the 1970s he belonged to the circle of arrangers who expanded the orchestral palette of R&B. Among his classical works are two Sinfoniettas for strings, Grass: Poem for piano, strings, and percussion (1973), the choral piece Fredome/Freedom (1970), and assorted chamber and keyboard compositions that reflect the influence of Hindemith, Bartók, and Samuel Barber while incorporating African American idioms. In his final years he directed the Center for Black Music Research and the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble at Columbia College in Chicago, where he died on March 9, 2004. Although recordings of his classical output remain limited, String Quartet No. 1 (“Calvary”) appeared on the Catalyst Quartet’s 2023 album Uncovered: Vol. 3.
In 1965 he helped establish and led the Symphony of the New World, the first racially integrated classical orchestra in the United States, later becoming its music director. He also served as music director for the American Theater Lab and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, creating the ballet For Bird, With Love for the latter company. His film scores include A Warm December (1973), Thomasine & Bushrod (1974), and Mean Johnny Barrows (1976), and he contributed music to episodes of the television series Room 222. Perkinson supplied pop arrangements for Marvin Gaye and Harry Belafonte; during the 1970s he belonged to the circle of arrangers who expanded the orchestral palette of R&B. Among his classical works are two Sinfoniettas for strings, Grass: Poem for piano, strings, and percussion (1973), the choral piece Fredome/Freedom (1970), and assorted chamber and keyboard compositions that reflect the influence of Hindemith, Bartók, and Samuel Barber while incorporating African American idioms. In his final years he directed the Center for Black Music Research and the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble at Columbia College in Chicago, where he died on March 9, 2004. Although recordings of his classical output remain limited, String Quartet No. 1 (“Calvary”) appeared on the Catalyst Quartet’s 2023 album Uncovered: Vol. 3.