If you haven’t heard of Philippa Duke Schuyler by now, then imagine how astonished Kathryn Talalay was in the early 1980s, when she discovered by chance a file with “Philippa Duke Schuyler” embossed on the cover. “How had I not heard of Philippa Schuyler?” Talalay asked in her biography of the famous woman. “News of her death had made the front page of the New York Times. The 1939 World’s Fair dedicated a day to her. She was profiled in the New Yorker. Why had such a bright star burned out? And most intriguing, where were all those music manuscripts, those thousands of lost notes?”
Thus began Talalay’s research into Schuyler, a woman, she wrote, who “exerted an extraordinary influence on the culture of her times.”
Schuyler was born on August 2, 1931, in Harlem. Her father, George Schuyler, was a distinguished Black journalist and author, and her mother, Josephine (Cogdell) Schuyler, was a white Texan heiress. Almost from birth as a mixed-race child, Schuyler began acquiring attention. “Philippa first attracted public attention when her parents discovered that she could read and write at the age of two and a half,” Talalay wrote. “She was playing Mozart at four, composing at five. She had spectacular success as a child prodigy, concertizing widely and winning numerous awards.”
At the age of 4, Schuyler could switch effortlessly from the typewriter to the piano, her imagination flowering on each instrument in words and compositions. It was during this phase of her development that she was profiled in newspapers for her ability to spell, including the longest work in the dictionary: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a lung disease resulting from inhaling volcanic rock dust. She was also a promising poet.
Schuyler’s emerging genius, according to her mother, was due to her mixed heritage—something akin to “hybrid vigor”—and her diet of raw food, all of which conformed to her notion of the power and benefit of miscegenation.
By the time she was 8, Philippa was performing with the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts at Carnegie Hall. Three years later, she became the youngest member of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors. However, none of these achievements were successful in shielding her from the persistent racism she encountered as she grew older. Moreover, there was the challenge of reconciling with her mixed-race heritage.
Schuyler was 15 when she graduated from Father Young S.J. Memorial High School, a school specializing in liturgical music. We can only guess how the rumors she heard during her teen years about being “a genetic experiment” affected her coming of age and her prowess as a pianist and later as a journalist.
By the late 1950s, after acclaimed recitals and performances before world leaders, including Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Schuyler began devoting her concert appearances abroad, mostly in Europe.
Journalism was always an alternate passion of hers, one that she pursued in earnest by the early ’50s, publishing travel articles and being one of the few African American reporters for United Press International. Some of this coverage was included in her books, including a biography, “Adventures in Black and White”; “Who Killed the Congo?”; “Jungle Saints,” about Catholic missionaries; and “Kingdom of Dreams,” about the interpretation of dreams and was co-authored with her mother.
There seems to have never been a sustained romantic interest, although Schuyler did have an abortion. She never came to grips with her racial identity, and although she shared her parents’ conservative views, eventually they differed on many things—she even decided that her parents’ marriage was a mistake.
On April 15, 1967, Schuyler gave a concert on South Vietnamese television. This was her second visit to Vietnam, not only to perform but also as a war correspondent for the Manchester Union Leader and to serve as a lay missionary. On May 9, she was among the passengers on a United States Army helicopter that crashed into Da Nang Bay. She survived the crash but could not swim and drowned. A week later, she lay in state at St. Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Church in Harlem. As Talalay wrote. “John Lindsay, then mayor of New York, paid his respects, as did hundreds of other friends and acquaintances. President Johnson and Mrs. Johnson sent a basket of white and red flowers.”
More than 2,000 people attended her funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on May 18, 1967. Her parents established a memorial foundation in her name, but her mother was profoundly affected by her death and took her own life two years later. The Philippa Schuyler School for the Gifted and Talented remains in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, dedicated to preserving her memory and offering artistic training for aspiring youth. At one time, there were plans to produce a biopic, starring Alicia Keys as Schuyler. Halle Berry owns the film rights to Schuyler’s biography.