Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson - Obit

[Lois Gilbert]

With deep sadness the Center for Black Music Research of Columbia College
Chicago reports that our friend and colleague Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
passed away on March 9, 2004, of cancer. He served the Center since 1998 as
its Artistic Director, Performance Program.

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was born in New York in 1932. After graduating
from New York's High School for Music and Art he studied composition at the
Manhattan School of Music, receiving his bachelor's degree in music in 1953
and a master's degree in composition in 1954. He later studied conducting
at the Berkshire Music Center, at the Salzburg Mozarteum, and with Franco
Ferrara and Dean Dixon. From 1965 to 1970, he was co-founder and associate
conductor for the Symphony of the New World and served as its acting music
director during the 1972-73 season. At various times in his career he also
served as music director or composer-in-residence for the Negro Ensemble
Company, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and
for productions at the American Theatre Lab, the Denver Center for the
Performing Arts, and the Goodman Theatre. At the time of his death he was
also composer-in-residence for the Ritz Chamber Players of Jacksonville,
Florida.

Perkinson's composing career began in high school, when his composition
"And Behold" won the High School for Music and Art choral competition in
1948. His career demonstrates his versatility as a composer of classical
music, popular music, theater and film music, and jazz. He composed and
arranged for a variety of jazz and popular artists including Harry
Belafonte, Donald Byrd, and Marvin Gaye (for whom he arranged Gaye's first
platinum album, I Want You, issued in 1976 on the Motown label). He served
as pianist for the Max Roach Jazz Quartet in 1964-65. He composed and
conducted scores for a number of award-winning theatrical, television, and
documentary and feature films, including A Warm December, starring Sidney
Poitier (1972). He also served as guest conductor for numerous orchestras
all over the world. His classical compositions have been recorded by the
Chicago Sinfonietta, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, flutist Harold
Jones, pianists John Cheek and Karen Walwyn, and cellist Anthony Elliott.

At the Center for Black Music Research, Perkinson was artistic advisor to
Ensemble Stop-Time, the Center's grant-funded ensemble formed to explore
the commonalities between the various black vernacular music forms,
including jazz and gospel. In 1999, he began his tenure as conductor and
music director of the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble, a group of
musicians dedicated to performing a spectrum of music by black composers,
from popular music and jazz to concert music. The Ensemble staged a
successful series of thirty-four concerts in Chicago, at the South Shore
Cultural Center, Buntrock Hall of Symphony Center, and other venues. The
Ensemble also performed for members of congress in Washington DC and in New
York City. In 2001, he conducted the Ensemble's world-premiere concert
performance of Doxology: The Doxy Canticles, an opera with libretto by Paul
Carter Harrison and music by Wendell Logan.

Survivors include a daughter, Joetti Thompson, a son-in-law, Henry Allen
Thompson, and two grandchildren, LaFrance T. Smith III (Trey) and Skylar
Thompson, all of Kansas City, Missouri; a sister, Beverly Perkinson Thomas,
two nieces, Monica and Michelle Thomas, and one nephew, Curtis Thomas, all
of Houston, Texas; cousins; other family members; and a host of friends.
Funeral arrangements are pending.

[Valerie]

A huge loss!

Sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Valerie Bishop