A LOOK BACK: KAPPA HISTORY
well as sacrifice. She knew at last that the ideals which she had passed on to me during my boyhood in Arkansas had borne worthy fruit.”
ied privately with avant-garde French composer Edgard Varèse and others. He combined an unorthodox mixture of his classical instruction with folk, blues, spirituals, jazz, and other ethnic Ameri- can music into his unique orchestral and operatic compositions. Still’s atypical manner of compositional training came from the years he spent writing commer- cial orchestrations. These experiences exceeded what he would have learned through formal training.
He combined an unorthodox mixture of his classical instruction with folk, blues, spirituals, jazz, and other ethnic American musics into his unique orchestral and operatic compositions. Still's atypical manner of compositional training came from the years he spent writing commercial orchestrations. These experiences exceeded what he would have learned through formal training. cian and composer Eubie Blake’s pit or- chestra for the Broadway musical comedy hit production, Shuffle Along in Boston. Still received private study in 1922 with the New England Conservatory (NEC) of Music. This opportunity was provided by George Chadwick, who was the Director of the NEC and came to be one of the significant influencers of Still’s musical philosophy. From 1923-1295, he stud-
The Honing of Musical Talents
Still never attained his Bachelor’s degree. His unconventional ‘school of experience’ compensated for his incom- plete academic studies. He studied mu- sic composition, theory, and violin at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1917- 1918), financed by his father’s inheri- tance. The remainder of his composition studies were provided free of charge by his music theory professor. His studies were interrupted by Still’s enlistment in the Navy during World War I. Upon the end of the war, Still returned to Oberlin, only to have his studies disrupted again when he accepted an offer to play oboe and cello in and arranging for ‘the father of the Blues’ W.C. Handy’s main band in New York. While there, Still served as an arranger and recording director at the first Black-owned record company, Black Swan Records.
Still’s Series of ‘Firsts’
Still’s first ‘serious’ success was with the symphonic poem Darker America. It premiered at Aeolian Hall, New York, on November 22, 1926. Still strayed from the conventional piano and band arrangements. He introduced three themes in sequence: ‘the American Ne- gro’ theme rises and falls in the strings, the ‘sorrow’ theme echoes from the Eng- lish horn, and the ‘hope’ theme follows in the brass accompanied by strings and woodwinds. The long interior section is an analogy for struggle. The journey ends with a ‘triumph of the people’, in which the three themes are blended
In 1921, he performed in noted musi-
William Grant Still, Jr. holding the instrument case in 1915. Wilberforce University Archives.
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