Edmund Jenkins was an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 composer during the Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...

. Jenkins studied music at Morehouse College in Atlanta with Kemper Herrald, and played and directed the bands of his father's orphanage in Charleston, SC. He went to England with the band in 1914 and remained there studying at the venerable Royal Academy of Music 1914-1921. He spent the most of his life abroad.

A Holstein prize was awarded for his piece, African War Dance and also for his Sonata in A minor for violoncello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

, in 1925. In 1925 in Belgium, his work Carlestonia, a rhapsody

Rhapsody (music)

A rhapsody in music is a one-movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, colour and tonality. An air of spontaneous inspiration and a sense of improvisation make it freer in form than a set of variations...

for orchestra—noted for its "Negro" themes—was performed. In London, Charlestonia: Negro Symphony was performed in 1919. His career which included jazz/dance band recordings (London: 1921) and in Europe was ended by an early death in Paris where he had settled in 1924.