William Grant Still was born in Mississippi to middle-class parents, his mother a schoolteacher and his father a teacher and local bandleader. Still’s father died while he was an infant, but in the following years his mother and stepfather encouraged his musical interests, taking him to concerts and buying him early recordings of classical music.

Still studied science at Wilberforce University in Ohio but left before graduating. He was awarded scholarships to pursue music at Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory. In later years he would win many awards and commissions for his compositions, including two Guggenheim Fellowships.

In 1919 Still settled in New York City and took a position as an arranger for the famous blues bandleader W. C. Handy. Through the 1920s and early 1930s Still arranged music for dance bands, musicals, recordings, and radio shows. His talents for orchestrating and arranging music and for conducting served him throughout his career. After moving to Los Angeles in 1934, he worked as an occasional arranger and composer of music for Hollywood films.

It is as a composer concert music, opera, and ballet, however, that Still is chiefly remembered. His output was large, ranging from solo songs with piano to many orchestral works, ballets, and operas. His work was repeatedly pathbreaking. His Afro-American Symphony, premiered by the Rochester Philharmonic in 1931, was the first symphony by a black composer to be played by a major orchestra. His Lenox Avenue, a series of “Choreographic Street Scenes” for announcer, orchestra, and chorus named after the “main street” of Harlem, was broadcast on CBS Radio in 1937.

Still’s opera Troubled Island became the first opera by a black composer to be staged by a major company when it premiered at the New York City Opera in 1949. It had begun many years before as a collaboration with the Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes; the libretto was completed by Still’s second wife, Verna Arvey.

Chief Works: Orchestral music: five symphonies; numerous symphonic poems and orchestral suites ◼ Eight operas and four ballets, including Troubled Island and Lenox Avenue ◼ Chamber works for various ensembles ◼ Songs for solo voice and various accompaniments, including the cycle Songs of Separation ◼ Several choral works, including And They Lynched Him on a Tree

Encore: After Afro-American Symphony, movement 4, listen to movement 1; Lenox Avenue; and Songs of Separation, final two songs.

Image credit: Used by permission, William Grant Still Music, williamgrantstill.com, all rights reserved.