Perkinson was
African-American and was named after the
Black British composer
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912). Perkinson's mother was active in music and the arts as a piano teacher, church organist, and director of a theater company. Perkinson attended the
High School of Music and Art in New York City and
New York University. He later transferred to the
Manhattan School of Music, where he studied composition with
Vittorio Giannini and Charles Mills. He received bachelor's and master's degrees from the
Manhattan School of Music. He also studied with
Earl Kim at
Princeton University. He was on the faculty of
Brooklyn College (1959–1962) and studied conducting in the summers of 1960, 1962, and 1963 in the
Netherlands with
Franco Ferrara and
Dean Dixon and also learned conducting in 1960 at the
Mozarteum in
Salzburg. Perkinson co-founded the
Symphony of the New World in New York in 1965 and later became its music director. He was also music director of
Jerome Robbins' American Theater Lab and the
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Perkinson composed a ballet for Ailey titled
For Bird, With Love, inspired by the music of
Charlie Parker. Perkinson wrote a great deal of classical music while additionally composing in jazz and popular music. He served briefly as
pianist for drummer
Max Roach’s quartet and wrote arrangements for Roach,
Marvin Gaye, and
Harry Belafonte. He also composed music for films such as
The McMasters (1970),
Together for Days (1972),
A Warm December (1973),
Thomasine & Bushrod (1974),
The Education of Sonny Carson (1974),
Amazing Grace (1974),
Mean Johnny Barrows (1976), and the documentary
Montgomery to Memphis (1970) about
Martin Luther King Jr. In 1970, he wrote incidental music for at least one episode of the US television show
Room 222. Perkinson's music has a blend of
Baroque counterpoint; American
Romanticism; elements of the
blues,
spirituals, and black
folk music; and rhythmic ingenuity. ==Compositions==