大象传媒

Donald Macleod explores the life and music of African-American composer William Grant Still. Today, Still鈥檚 early years, including his transformative period of study with Edgard Var猫se.

William Grant Still never really knew his father; William Grant Snr died, in mysterious circumstances, when his son was just three months old. Still鈥檚 mother, Carrie, a high-school English teacher, seems to have responded by redoubling her efforts to be a good parent: as Still recalled later, 鈥淪he constantly impressed me with the thought that I should achieve something worthwhile in life鈥�. His school career went well, but by the time he moved on to college, his interest in music had become all-consuming. He struggled to make his grades and dropped out to become a jobbing musician, playing with and making arrangements for the man who would become known as the 鈥楩ather of the Blues鈥�, W C Handy. At 21, Still married, to a fellow college-student called Grace Bundy. It was evidently an explosive relationship, and after a few months she moved back in with her parents. Still used part of an inheritance from his father to enrol at Oberlin College to study music. World War I intervened, after which he gravitated to New York, where he eventually found himself working as a staff composer and arranger for the Pace Phonograph Company 鈥� which is how he came to meet Edgard Var猫se, the groundbreaking modernist composer who soon become Still's mentor.

Brown Baby (extract)
Ethel Waters and The Jazz Masters

Darker America
Westchester Symphony Orchestra
Siegfried Landau, conductor

Breath of a Rose
Louise Toppin, soprano
Vivian Taylor, piano

La Guiablesse (The She-Devil), ballet
Berlin Symphony Orchestra
Isaiah Jackson, conductor

Africa, suite for orchestra (1. Land of Peace)
Fort Smith Symphony
John Jeter, conductor

Produced by Chris Barstow for 大象传媒 Wales.