Sunday, June 7, 2009

Chicago Classical Review: William Grant Still's 'Afro-American Symphony' at Grant Park Music Festival


[Africa: Piano Music of William Grant Still; Denver Oldham, piano; Koch 3 7084 2H1 (1991)]

ChicagoClassicalReview.com
Sat Jun 06, 2009
by Wynne Delacoma
“Celebrating its 75th, Grant Park Music Festival to look back and forward this season”
“Music from the 1930s is the focus June 26 and 27 when the orchestra moves indoors to the Harris Theater, just north of the Pritzker Pavilion on Randolph Street. Kalmar conducts a program including William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony, William Schuman’s American Festival Overture, Samuel Barber’s Overture to The School for Scandal and The Prairie, A Poem for Orchestra after Carl Sandburg by Chicago composer Leo Sowerby. Tim Samuelson, cultural historian for the City of Chicago, will be the narrator.” For information on the festival, call 312-742-7638 or log onto http://www.grantparkmusicfestival.com/. [Full Post]

Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma comments on Still's Afro-American Symphony in Africana Encyclopedia: “A contemporary of Work and Dawson, William Grant Still based his first symphony, the Afro-American Symphony (1930), on the blues and his experience as a jazz arranger. [William Grant Still (1895-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, where a complete Works List by Dr. De Lerma is also found]
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