Sunday, January 15, 2012

PRX.org: 'The life and career of the African-American composer William Grant Still is a true American success story.'

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


PRX, Public Radio Exchange, presents a one-hour documentary which can be heard and read online at any time: 


Series: Compact Discoveries
From: Fred Flaxman 
Length: 00:58:00

“The first of three programs for Black History Month about the life and music of this African-American composer.”

Transcript (Excerpt)

Compact Discoveries® 
a series of one-hour radio programs produced, written, hosted, and edited by Fred Flaxman 
©2012 by Fred Flaxman



Program 191 
"William Grant Still"

MUSIC: Still: excerpt from the first movement of Symphony No. 1 (“Afro-American”) performed by the Fort Smith Symphony conducted by John Jeter [Naxos 8.559174, Track 7] [under the following]

The life and career of the African-American composer William Grant Still is a true American success story. He rose from humble beginnings to work as an arranger while studying composition with George Chadwick and Edgar Varèse. An active participant in the Harlem Renaissance, he embraced African-American forms such as the blues, spirituals, and jazz, in addition to other ethnic American genres.
MUSIC: fades out
This is Compact Discoveries. I’m your guide, Fred Flaxman, and for the next hour we’re going to hear two of this composer’s finest works: his Symphony Number 1 from 1930, which is known as the Afro-American Symphony, and his three-movement symphonic poem, Africa, which is also from 1930.

William Grant Still was born in Woodville, Mississippi, on May 11, 1895, to a family of Negro, Indian, Spanish, Irish, and Scotch ancestry. His father was the town’s bandmaster, but he died when William was only three. His mother was a teacher.

After his father died, Still’s mother moved with him to Little Rock, where he had his first musical experience, studying the violin. At his mother’s urging, he later began medical studies, but dropped out in favor of music.  Still initially worked as an arranger for several popular performers, including W.C. Handy, composer of the St. Louis Blues, and Artie Shaw, whose hit Frenesi he orchestrated.

Still’s music studies at Oberlin College were ended by the First World War when he served in the Navy. After the war he moved to New York, working for Handy and playing the oboe in pit orchestras while he studied composition.

Still arrived in New York in the 1920s, at the time of the cultural awakening of African-Americans known as the Harlem Renaissance. This is when his attention turned to classical composition for good. In 1930 he moved to Los Angeles to work as an arranger for Paul Whiteman. There he also expanded his horizons into film and radio. That year saw the composition of both works that we are going to listen to in this hour, beginning with Still’s First Symphony, the Afro-American. This work remains to this day his most popular and most recorded work.

In this Naxos compact disc, the Fort Smith, Arkansas, Symphony is conducted by John Jeter.
MUSIC: Still: Symphony No. 1 (“Afro-American”) performed by the Fort Smith Symphony conducted by John Jeter [Naxos 8.559174, Tracks 5, 6, 7, and 8] [24:57]
William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1, the Afro-American. John Jeter conducted the Fort Smith Symphony, the oldest orchestra in the state of Arkansas, founded in 1923. Jeter has been its conductor since 1997. [William Grant Still (1895-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com]




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