Still, William Grant

May 11, 1895
December 3, 1978

Although he was born in Woodville, Mississippi, composer William Grant Still grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. He attended Wilberforce University and Oberlin College. His private studies in composition were with George Whitefield Chadwick in Boston and Edgard Varèse in New York.

Still's musical style is perhaps best described as nationalist, successfully blending indigenous American musical elements, African-American folk materials, and the blues idiom into a range of musical genres: symphonic and operatic compositions, chamber music, and art songs. Many of his compositions were inspired by the black experience in America. Over the years he developed an eloquent musical expressiveness in his works. An outstanding achievement was his handling of melody in his strongly lyrical pieces.

Because he was an excellent orchestrator, Still was engaged by such celebrities as Paul Whiteman, Don Voorhees, Sophie Tucker, Willard Robison, and Artie Shaw to prepare orchestral arrangements. In his early years he played in various dance orchestras and pit orchestras for musicals. Still was associated in the music industry with W. C. Handy, Harry Pace and his Black Swan Phonograph Company, the Deep River Hour on CBS Radio, and Columbia Pictures.

Still composed over 150 musical works. His most significant symphonic compositions are the Afro-American Symphony (1930), Symphony No. 2 in G Minor (1937), Festive Overture (1944), Plain-Chant for America (1941, revised 1968), From the Black Belt (1926), And They Lynched Him on a Tree (1940), and Darker America (1924). Still composed ten operas, including Highway 1, U.S.A. (1962), Troubled Island (1941), and A Bayou Legend (1941). His ballets include Sadhji (1930), Lenox Avenue (1937), and La Guiablesse (1927). Verna Arvey, his wife, collaborated as a librettist in the writing of many of his works.

Still received many commissions, awards, prizes, and honorary degrees, as well as Guggenheim and Rosenwald Fellowships. His contributions to African-American music are significant: He was the first African-American composer to have a symphony played by a major American orchestra (Afro-American Symphony ), the first to have an opera performed by a major company, the first to conduct a major orchestra, and one of the first to write for radio, films, and television.

See also Music in the United States; Opera

Bibliography

Arvey, Verna. In One Lifetime. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1984.

Southern, Eileen. "William Grant Still." In Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982.

lucius r. wyatt (1996)