William Grant Still

Symphony No. 1 "Afro-American" (1930) by William Grant Still was the first symphony written by an African American man and performed for an American audience. It is a symphonic piece for full orchestra, including celeste, harp, and tenor banjo. It combines a fairly traditional symphony with blues progressions and rhythms that were characteristic of popular African music at the time. A traditional symphony contains four movements – the first is usually in sonata form, the second is a slower movement, the third is either a minuet and trio or a dance-like scherzo, and the fourth is normally a faster movement in rondo or sonata form – and is traditionally characteristic of orchestral pieces written by white European composers. The blues is a type of music that originates in African American communities in the United States, and typically consisted of twelve-bar patterns of chord progressions. The blues had not been heavily or noticeably incorporated into traditional musical forms such as the symphony before Still. This combination of the symphony and blues music reflects Still's view that both the black and white cultures in America at the time had strong influences on each other, even though their cultures were very segregated.

Still composed the Afro-American Symphony in a time frame of about 3 months, during which he had no steady job. Before he actually started the Symphony, Still kept a journal entitled "Material for Rashana" – Rashana was an opera by Still, but was never completed. Sketches and the mapping out of the four movements of the Symphony are in this journal, along with Still's purpose for writing the piece: "I seek in the ‘Afro-American Symphony' to portray not the higher type of colored American, but the sons of the soil, who still retain so many of the traits peculiar to their African forebears; who have not responded completely to the transforming effect of progress"(Smith 122). Still veered away from the ultramodernist style of his teacher, Edgard Varèse in the Afro-American Symphony in the sense that he used obvious, though irregular, key relationships as opposed to a great deal of chromatic harmonies, so that audiences would not be as distracted by the style, but would recognize and focus more on Still's use of fusion of Euro-American and African musical characteristics. Still believed that if he composed in the style of the ultramodernists, the African music he was trying to write would not be recognizable as such.

William Grant Still was born in Woodville, Mississippi. His parents were teachers and musicians. They were of mixed origin: African-American, Native American, Spanish and Anglo (Scots-Irish). His father died when William was a few months old and his mother took him to Little Rock, Arkansas where she taught high school English. He grew up in Little Rock and took violin lessons there.

He then attended Wilberforce University, founded as an African-American school, in Ohio. He conducted the university band, learned to play various instruments and started to compose and to do orchestrations. He also studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music on scholarship. He later studied at the New England Conservatory again on scholarship, and then with the ultra-modern composer, Edgard Varese.

Still initially composed in the modernist style but later merged musical aspects of his African-American heritage with traditional European classical forms to form a unique style. In 1931 his Symphony No. 1 was performed by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, making him the first African-American composer to receive such attention. In 1936 Still conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and became the first African-American to conduct a major American Orchestra. In 1949 his opera Troubled Island was performed by the New York City Opera and became the first opera by an African-American to be performed by a major company. In 1955 he conducted the New Orleans Philharmonic Orchestra and became the first African-American to conduct a major orchestra in the Deep South. Still's works were also performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC Orchestra. He was the first African-American to have an opera performed on national television. Additionally, he was the Recording Manager of the Black Swan Phonograph Company.

In the 1930s Still worked as an arranger of popular music, writing for Willard Robison's "Deep River Hour," and Paul Whiteman's "Old Gold Show," both popular NBC Radio broadcasts.

Still eventually moved to Los Angeles, California, where he arranged music for films. These included Pennies from Heaven (the 1936 film starring Bing Crosby and Madge Evans) and Lost Horizon (the 1937 film starring Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt and Sam Jaffe). For Lost Horizon he arranged the music of Dimitri Tiomkin. Still was also hired to arrange the music for the film Stormy Weather but left the assignment after a few weeks due to artistic disagreements.

William Grant Still received two Guggenheim Fellowships. He also was awarded honorary doctorates from Oberlin College, Wilberforce University, Howard University, Bates College, the University of Arkansas, Pepperdine University, the New England Conservatory of Music, the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and the University of Southern California.

Still married Verna Arvey, a journalist and concert pianist, in 1939. They remained together until he died of heart failure in Los Angeles, California in 1978.