William Grant Still
(May 11, 1895 – December 3, 1978)

William Grant Still is often referred to as the “Dean of African American Composers.” During his lifetime, he composed nearly 200 works including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, and more than thirty choral works, plus art songs, chamber music and works for solo instruments.

Still was born in Woodville, MS in 1895 and grew up in Little Rock, AR. He showed a great interest in music and learned to play violin, clarinet, saxophone, double bass, cello and viola.

He studied music theory and counterpoint at the Oberlin Conservatory of MusicHe also studied privately with the modern French composer Edgard Varèse and the American composer George Whitefield Chadwick.

In 1916 Still worked with W.C. Handy‘s band. In 1918 he joined the United States Navy to serve in World War I. After the war he went to Harlem, where he continued to work for Handy. During his time in Harlem, Still was involved with other important cultural figures of the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, and Countee Cullen, and is considered to be part of that movement.

He worked with various bandleaders and in pit orchestras as well as becoming an arranger of popular songs during the 1920s and 1930s. He also arranged music for films like Pennies From Heaven (1936) and Lost Horizon(1937). Still’s prolific and influential career as a commercial arranger is only beginning to be explored.

Still’s first major orchestral composition, Symphony No. 1 “Afro-American”, was performed in 1931 by the Rochester Philharmonic. It was the first time the complete score of a work by an African American was performed by a major orchestra.

In 1949 his opera Troubled Island, originally completed in 1939, about Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the Haitian revolution, was performed by the New York City Opera. It was the first opera by an American to be performed by that company and the first by an African American to be performed by a major opera company.

If you’d like to learn more about William Grant Still, here are a few items from the Music Library’s collection:

* William Grant Still by Catherine Parsons Smith (book)

* The American Scene William Grant Still (Streaming audio via Classical Music Library)

* Africa: A Suite for Piano (Score)

* Troubled Island: An Opera by William Grant Still (available as a Score and as a CD)

* Symphony No. 1 “Afro American” (available on CD, as Streaming Audio, and as a Score)