William Grant Still

William Grant Still Jr. was an American composer of nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, and more than thirty choral works, art songs, chamber music, and solo works. Born in Mississippi and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, Still attended Wilberforce University and Oberlin Conservatory of Music as a student of George Whitefield Chadwick and then as a student of Edgard Varèse. Because of his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, Still is considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance. Still was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera. He is known primarily for his first symphony, Afro-American Symphony, which, until 1950, was the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. Still often is referred to as the "Dean of Afro-American Composers". From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)