City Wire: Fort Smith Symphony records first 'cycle of the complete symphonies by Arkansan William Grant Still (1895-1978)'

[“William Grant Still (1895 – 1978); Symphony No. 5 Western Hemisphere (1945, rev. 1970) [19:37]; Poem for Orchestra (1944) [10:27]; Symphony No. 4 Autochthonous (1947) [26:15]; Fort Smith Symphony/John Jeter”; World Première Recordings; Naxos American Classics 8.559603 [56:24]]

Today we present excerpts from a guest commentary contributed to The City Wire by Maestro John Jeter of the Fort Smith Symphony in Fort Smith, Arkansas:

The City Wire
Fort Smith Region

June 19, 2011

Guest commentary by John Jeter

“Founded in 1923, the Fort Smith Symphony is the oldest orchestra in Arkansas. In recent years it has become a fully professional level city/regional orchestra with a roster of more than 100 paid musicians from 7 states and a full-time staff of 4.”

“The Symphony offers a number of free educational programs including Earquake!TM and Symphony-in-the-Schools. Now beginning its ninth year, Earquake!TM is an award-winning multi-media series of concerts featuring full-symphony orchestra, live video projection, dance, audience participation and exciting young guest soloists. We call it EARquake!TM because most of the music is loud and fast and 'assaults' the ears (in a good way!) like a seismic event or earthquake. These concerts are performed for more than 2,600 sixth grade students throughout the River Valley and Eastern Oklahoma.

“The Symphony provides study guides to participating schools to help prepare students for this music education experience. The concerts are free events for participation schools and are built into the music curriculum of many of the public school systems in our region. These are standing room only and are free due to the extremely generous support of many businesses and patrons in our region. One of the many positive outcomes of Earquake!TM is a significant increase in participation of students in the school music programs in our area. Many teachers and students have mentioned Earquake!TM as an influence in their decision to join a school music ensemble.”

“Other Symphony educational activities include a guest artist in the schools program, music director in the schools program and specific educational activities organized around specific concerts such as the recent visit of composer William Grant Still’s daughter to Fort Smith. The Fort Smith Symphony recently completed the first ever recorded cycle of the complete symphonies by Arkansan William Grant Still (1895-1978). The 3 CD’s/downloads were recorded by Naxos, the world's largest classical label and will be for sale worldwide. This is a significant accomplishment for an orchestra based in a community our size. The first two CD/download releases sold well in the U.S. and internationally, and continue to be broadcast on classical music stations from Los Angeles to London.” [William Grant Still (1895-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, where a complete Works Lists by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma is featured.]