Famous Musicians - Edmond Thornton Jenkins (1894-1926)

 

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     Edmond was born April 9, 1894, in Charleston, South Carolina, the seventh child to Daniel Joseph Jenkins and Lena James Jenkins.

     He studied music with his father, a minister and founder of Jenkins Orphanage famous for its boys’ bands, and by the time he was 14 could play all the band instruments. He attended Avery Normal Institute in Charleston and Morehouse College in Atlanta. Later he attended the Royal Academy of Music in London.

     In 1914, he traveled to London with an orphanage band to play at the Anglo-African Exposition. While at the Royal Academy, he won the Charles Lucas Battison Haines Prize for composition and the Oliveria Prescott Prize. He taught at the Academy, served as a church organist, and played clarinet in the Savoy Theatre orchestra.

     Edmond's works include Charlestonia, a rhapsody for orchestra using Negro themes, Negro Symphony, and African War Dance for full orchestra and Sonata in A minor for violoncello that won Holstein prizes in New York in 1925.

     He died September 12, 1926 in Paris, France following a sudden illness.

 

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One of the "Five Most Important Charleston Jazz Musicians" - (Charleston Jazz Initiative)