BIOGRAPHY

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (June 14, 1932, Manhattan, New York City or possibly (unconfirmed) Winston-Salem, North Carolina – March 9, 2004, Chicago) was born to a musically active mother who named him after the black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. He attended the High School of Music and Art in New York City and continued on to study composition at the Manhattan School of Music where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. It was there that his interest in jazz and popular music outside of the classical music world began. He co-founded the Symphony of the New World in 1965 and later became its music director. He continued to compose ballets and other pieces that combined elements of classical counterpoint and jazz and blues while being the music director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Jerome Robbins’s American Theater Lab. He also composed and conducted music for television, theater, and documentary films.