Career
In 1918, Still joined the United States Navy to serve in World War I. Between 1919 and 1921, Still worked as an arranger for W.C. Handy's band and later played in the pit orchestra for Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake's musical Shuffle Along. Later in the twenties, he served as the arranger of Yamekraw, a "Negro Rhapsody" composed by the noted Harlem Stride pianist, James P. Johnson.
In the 1930s Still worked as an arranger of popular music, writing for Willard Robison's Deep River Hour, and Paul Whiteman's Old Gold Show, both popular NBC Radio broadcasts and in 1936, Still conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra as the first African-American to conduct a major American orchestra.
In 1934, Still was the recipient of his first Guggenheim Fellowship and it was then that he began work on the first of his eight operas, Blue Steele. In 1949 his opera Troubled Island, originally completed in 1939, about Jean Jacques Dessalines and Haiti, was performed by the New York City Opera. It was the first opera by an African-American to be performed by a major company. In 1955 he conducted the New Orleans Philharmonic Orchestra and became the first African-American to conduct a major orchestra in the Deep South. Still's works were performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC Orchestra. He was the first African American to have an opera performed on national United States television when Bayou Legend, originally penned in 1941, premiered on PBS. Additionally, he was the recording manager of the Black Swan Phonograph Company.
Still eventually moved to Los Angeles, California, where he arranged music for films. These included Pennies from Heaven (the 1936 film starring Bing Crosby and Madge Evans) and Lost Horizon (the 1937 film starring Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt and Sam Jaffe). For Lost Horizon, he arranged the music of Dimitri Tiomkin. Still was also hired to arrange the music for the film Stormy Weather, but left the assignment after a few weeks due to artistic disagreements.
Read more about this topic: William Grant Still
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