George Walker
(Associated Press)
George Walker (b. 1922)
has a website at http://georgetwalker.com/
and is featured at
AfriClassical.com
March 4, 2015
It's a credit to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra that George Walker is
a familiar name among local concertgoers. At 92, Walker, the first
African-American composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for music (1996),
has had about half a dozen of his muscular, expressive pieces performed
by the DSO dating back to the 1970s. Some of them were DSO commissions,
and the orchestra also recorded his Piano Concerto as part of the
pioneering Black Composer's series in the '70s on Columbia Records. A
virtuoso pianist, Walker even once played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto
No. 1 with the DSO during the summer at the Meadow Brook Music Festival
in the '70s on the same program as his "Lyric for Strings," His 2008
Violin Concerto will be performed by the DSO this weekend as part of the
annual Classical Roots celebration of African-Americans in classical
music. The composer's son, Gregory Walker, will be the soloist. George
Walker, who will attend the concerts in Detroit, spoke this week from
Montclair, N.J.`
QUESTION: What does the Detroit Symphony mean to you?
ANSWER:
My relationship with the DSO has been exceptional and very special
because of all of the connections that I've had going back to 1977 when
Paul Freeman did my Piano Concerto — then later when Neeme Jarvi was
conducting and when Emil Kang was in the administration.
Now
with my Violin Concerto, people don't realize how unusual is is to have
the father-son combination. I can't think of any other instance going
back to the 18th Century of a composer writing a major work for his son
to play. And it's not just one piece, but all the others I've written
for him.
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