This presentation contains information on several important composers of African heritage.

1. Classical Music Composers
of African Heritage

2. While musicians of African heritage
have played a dominant role in the
development of jazz and many styles
of popular music, it is only recently that
musicians of African heritage have begun
to emerge as classical composers.
That being said though, over the past
three centuries, there have been some
notable Black composers whose music
is highly worthy of recognition.

3. One of the earliest
classical composers
of African heritage is
Joseph Bologne,
(1745-1799) a French
composer, also known as
the Chevalier de Saint-
Georges.
Sometimes called “The
Black Mozart,” Bologne
was also a virtuoso
violinist and conductor
of the leading symphony
orchestra in Paris.
Joseph Bologne (1745-1799)
also known as the
Chevalier de Saint-Georges

4. Born in Guadeloupe,
Joseph Bologne was the
son of George Bologne de
Saint-Georges, a wealthy
planter, and Nanon, his
African slave.
* Chevalier is a class of
membership in a French
or Belgian Order of
Chivalry or order of merit,
equivalent to that of
an English knight.
Joseph Bologne (1745-1799)
also known as the
Chevalier de Saint-Georges*

5. Trained in fencing and
swordsmanship as well
as music, Joseph Bologne
was an elite musketeer of
the King’s Horse Guard,
a master-swordsman
and Europe’s fencing
champion.
He composed operas,
symphonies, concertos,
sonatas and string quartets.
Listen now to one of
Bologne’s violin concertos.
(next slide)
In 2002, a street in
Paris was renamed
in memory of the
Chevalier de Saint-George.

6. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor *
(1875-1912) was an English
composer of considerable
accomplishment;
known in England as
“The African Mahler.”
Some of the music of
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
shows a distinct influence
of Impressionism.
* Not to be confused with
the English Romantic poet,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
(1772 -1834) author of
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
(1875-1912)

7. In the late 1890s,
Coleridge-Taylor’s music was
widely performed throughout
England. His cantata,
Hiawatha's Wedding Feast,
was particularly famous for
many years and made the
composer's name known
throughout the world.
Listen now to one of
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s
works for orchestra entitled
Ballade for Orchestra,
Opus 33 (next slide)
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
(1875-1912)

8. William Grant Still
(1895-1978) was a prominent
African American composer
who had a successful career
as a composer of both
concert music and film
music. His Symphony No. 1,
(subtitled the “Afro-American
Symphony”) was the first
symphony by an African
American composer to be
performed by a major U.S.
orchestra (in 1931, by the
Rochester Philharmonic) William Grant Still
(1895-1978)

9. William Grant Still composed
or arranged music for
70 films, including such
classics as Lost Horizon,
Pennies From Heaven and
Stormy Weather.
Still also composed
8 operas, including
Troubled Island, which was
produced by the New York
City Opera in 1949, the first
opera by an African
American composer to be
produced by a major opera
company in the U.S.
William Grant Still
(1895-1978)

10. Still’s Afro-American
Symphony combines the
traditional symphonic form
with blues progressions
and rhythms that were
characteristic of popular
African-American music
of the time.
Please listen to the
first movement of
William Grant Still’s
Symphony No. 1
“Afro-American Symphony”
(next slide) William Grant Still
(1895-1978)

11. Florence Beatrice Price
(1887-1953) was the first
African American woman
to be recognized as
a symphonic composer,
and the first to have a
composition played by a
major orchestra.
Price’s music combines
blues-inspired melodies
mixed with traditional
European Romantic
compositional techniques.
Florence Beatrice Price
(1887-1953)

12. Florence Beatrice Price
composed numerous
orchestral works, choral
works, solo vocal works,
works for solo piano
and solo organ and
arrangements of spirituals.
Please listen now to an
excerpt from her 1934
Piano Concerto
in One Movement
(First Section; 7’43”)
Florence Beatrice Price
(1887-1953)

13. George Theophilus Walker
(born in 1922) is a African
American composer whose
work, Lilacs, was awaded the
Pulitzer Prize for Music
in 1996.
Another of his works,
Lyric for Strings, is
considered one of his most
important works.
Please listen now to
George Walker’s
Lyric for Strings.
(next slide)
George Theophilus Walker
(born 1922)