Composer George Walker takes a bow at a performance of his Pulitzer winning piece, Lilacs, in California in 1996.
Luis Sinco/LA Times/Getty Images
Tom Huizenga
August 24, 2018
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, pianist and educator George Walker
has died at the age of 96. Walker's death was announced to NPR by one of
his family members, Karen Schaefer, who said he died Thursday at
Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, N.J. after a fall.
Walker's
music was firmly rooted in the modern classical tradition, but also
drew from African-American spirituals and jazz. His nearly 100
compositions range broadly, from intricately orchestrated symphonic
works and concertos to intimate songs and solo piano pieces.
"His
music is always characterized by a great sense of dignity, which is how
he always comported himself," says composer Jeffrey Mumford, who, as a
music professor at Lorain County Community College in Ohio, uses
examples of Walker's music in his classes. "His style evolved over the
years; his earlier works, some written while still a student, embodied
an impressive clarity and elegance."
Walker was a trailblazing
man of "firsts," and not just because of the Pulitzer. In the year 1945
alone, he was the first African-American pianist to play a recital at
New York's Town Hall, the first black instrumentalist to play solo with
the Philadelphia Orchestra and the first black graduate of the Curtis
Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
The following year, Walker wrote his first string quartet. In 1990, he revised the second movement into a new piece, Lyric for Strings, which has become his most often-performed work.
In 1996, Walker broke new ground again when he became the first African-American composer to win a Pulitzer Prize for music. Lilacs for
voice and orchestra, set to a text by Walt Whitman, is a moving
meditation on the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
George
Theophilus Walker was born June 27, 1922 in Washington, D.C. to a
father from the West Indies and a mother who started him off with piano
lessons at age five. At 14, Walker gave his first public recital at
Washington's Howard University. In 1937, he entered Oberlin College in
Ohio on a scholarship and graduated at age 18. He then enrolled at the
prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied
piano with Rudolf Serkin and composition with Samuel Barber, graduating
in 1945. In the late 1950s, he traveled to Paris to study for two years
with the famous pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. (Her other students ranged
from Aaron Copland to Quincy Jones.)
Mumford likes to recall a
story about Walker's Paris years with Boulanger. "She was so impressed
with his musicianship that she waived the regular requirements she made
of students," Mumford says. "He could bring anything he wanted to show
her at lessons."
Walker's reputation as a composer of works
for orchestras like the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra
and the Boston Symphony slowly grew, but Mumford says Walker's fame was
hard-won.
"We have a great deal of work to do regarding
orchestra programming of composers of color," Mumford says. "Walker
deserved many more performances than he has received thus far. Sad to
say the even the work that earned him the Pulitzer has not graced the
concert hall nearly enough." It was only seven years ago that Walker
became the first African-American composer to have a work performed at
the Cabrillo Festival in California, a celebrated annual gathering of
new music composers and performers.
Walker is often identified as an "African-American" composer instead of simply an American composer. In a 1987 interview with broadcaster Bruce Duffie, Walker said there are two sides to that label.
"I've
benefited from being a black composer in the sense that when there are
symposiums given of music by black composers, I would get performances
by orchestras that otherwise would not have done the works," Walker
said. "The other aspect, of course, is that if I were not black, I would
have had a far wider dispersion of my music and more performances."
Comment by email:
Comment by email:
I was terribly saddened to hear
that George Walker, one of the brilliant composers of my generation, has
passed away, and despite the fact that he was close to 100 years old
and had many first achievements in his list of credits, his music was
not heard and performed extensively during his lifetime. One would think
that a Pulitzer Prize would be more than enough for him to be
recognized as a pre-eminent composer and pianist, but I must admit that
he was probably filed away and neglected because he was
African-American.
Unfortunately, this
is a very distressing commentary regarding the current state of affairs
with black composers, except that we can hear their music for special
tributes during Black History/ Heritage month, or when a critic decides
to write an occasional piece about their contributions.
Hale
Smith, another outstanding composer from my generation who passed away
recently, wrote an excellent essay entitled “Here I Stand” in which he
made a strong and compelling case for mainstreaming the music
of African-American composers with the works of Bach,Stravinsky,Brahms
and anyone else in the Western canon.
He
also said that race and national origin should not necessarily be
included as points for identification…in other words, let the music
speak and express the composer’s art, and let the listener/audience form
their own impressions about what they hear.
Finally,
I must say that after 60 + years of performing and teaching, I continue
to play music that resonates with me, regardless of who wrote it, and I
perform the music of African-American composers because they deserve
more recognition, nevertheless, I agree with Hale Smith’s premise that
their music must be mainstreamed on concerts and classical radio
stations throughout the world. It must stand on its own merit and not
because it happens to have been written by an African-American composer.
This is probably the best way to bring an end to years of neglect and
musical racism.
Althea Waites
Keyboard Faculty/ Steinway Artist
Cole Conservatory@California State University/Long Beach 
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