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Community Corner

Summer Concert presented by the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock


Presented by the Orchestra at Shelter Rock, Stephen Michael Smith Conductor. $10, Free for those under 18. One hour concert will be followed by a reception with the artists.

William Grant Still and his Afro-American Symphony William Grant Still was a man of firsts. In 1931, he was distinguished as the first African American in the United States to have a symphony performed by a major symphony orchestra (The Rochester Philharmonic). In 1936, when he conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in his compositions at the Hollywood Bowl, he was the first African American to conduct a major symphony orchestra. He was the first African American to conduct a major symphony orchestra in the Deep South when he directed the New Orleans Philharmonic at Southern University in 1955. He was the first African American to have an opera produced by a major company in the United States, when Troubled Island was performed at the City Center of Music and Drama in New York City in 1949. He was the first to have an opera televised over a national network. Trained at the Oberlin and New England Conservatories on private scholarships, and a student of the modern composer, Edgard Varese, Still combined a fairly traditional symphonic form with blues progressions and rhythms which were characteristic of popular African American music of the time. Even today, we hear his music as a fresh, unique blend of black culture and classical forms. At the time of his death, William Grant Still had been awarded eight honorary doctorates, and a large number of awards and citations. In spite of all this, William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony is rarely programmed, and he is hardly a household name. The Shelter Rock community has a unique opportunity to hear this wonderful work at our Orchestra at Shelter Rock Concert on Sunday, August 3 at 1:00 p.m. at UUCSR. Don’t miss it! Stephen Michael Smith, Music Director

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