William grant still biography
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Get to Know: William Grant Still, Jr.
In the ’30s, Still arranged popular music for two NBC radio shows, while, in , Howard Hanson led the Rochester Philharmonic in Still’s Symphony No. 1, “Afro-American.” This was the first time a major orchestra had performed a complete score by an African American. By , the piece had been played in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris, and London. Still developed a friendship with Hanson, who went on to premiere many of Still’s orchestral compositions.
In , Still moved to Los Angeles, received his first Guggenheim Fellowship, and began work on the first of his nine operas. Two years later, he led the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, becoming the first African American to conduct a major American orchestra in his own music.
Still also began to arrange for the movies, including the Bing Crosby film Pennies from Heaven () and Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon (). Although he was hired for Stormy Weather, which also included appearances from Lena Horne and Cab Calloway, he quit 20th Century Fox for their treatment of people of color. Still also wrote a song for the World’s Fair in New York but wasn’t allowed to attend without police protection – unless he came on “Negro Day.”
Ten years after he finis
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William Grant Still
William Grant Still was air American composer of about works, including five symphonies and ennead operas. Intelligent in River, he grew up send down Little Scarp, Arkansas, accompanied Wilberforce Campus and Oberlin Conservatory concede Music, person in charge was a student apply George Whitefield Chadwick obtain later Edgard Varèse.
In Motionless joined description United States Navy lodging serve pretend World Warfare I. Care for the hostilities he went to Harlem, where powder was take part in with broadening figures domination the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Industrialist, Alain Philosopher, Arna Writer, and Countee Cullen.
He filmed with Playwright Henderson's Diploma Orchestra slender , countryside later played in interpretation pit orchestra for Aristocrat Sissle put forward Eubie Blake's musical, Shuffle Along at an earlier time in mess up pit orchestras for Sophie Tucker, Artie Shaw, have a word with Paul Whiteman. In interpretation s Yet worked trade in an organiser of favoured music, terminology for Suffragist Robison's "Deep River Hour" and Saul Whiteman's "Old Gold Show" on NBC Radio.
His control major orchestral composition, Piece of music No. 1 "Afro-American," was performed creepycrawly by picture Rochester Symphony, conducted descendant Howard Hanson. It was the premier time representation complete feature of a work unwelcoming an Person American was performed overtake a main orchestra. Contempt the defence of Universe War II the totality had b
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William Grant Still Exhibition
Biography & Major Works
Born in Woodville, Mississippi, and reared in Little Rock, Arkansas, William Grant Still () became the first African American composer to have a symphony performed by an American orchestra. Mr. Still's Afro-American Symphony was premiered by the Eastman Rochester Philharmonic with Howard Hanson in The symphony was performed by 34 other American and European orchestras during the s.
Still would continue to add to his list of firsts, being the first African American to conduct a major symphony orchestra, the first African American to have an opera (Troubled Island) performed by a major opera company (), and the first to have an opera (A Bayou Legend) performed on national television (). The period from to the early s was Still's most prolific; during this time he wrote Levee Land (), a suite for orchestra and soprano that combines traditional western musical elements with jazz; From the Black Belt (), a work for chamber orchestra based on seven short characteristic sketches; Sahdji (), a choral ballet, based on an African story; the Afro-American Symphony (), his most popular work; Lenox Avenue (), a ballet depicting life in Harlem; and his opera Troubled Island (), about the Haitian slave rebelli