SoNA Mother and Child 2022-23 Program Notes

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SoNA

Symphony of Northwest Arkansas

Mother and Child January 7, 2023 Walton Arts Center Paul Haas, conductor

Mother and Child (1943–1944)

including Dmitri Tiomkin for Frank Capra’s

William Grant Still

Lost Horizon. He was on the musical staff

b 11 May, 1895 in Woodville, MS

for the TV show Perry Mason. And he wrote

d 3 December, 1978 in Los Angeles, CA

prolifically for the concert hall—so much so, in fact, that much of his output awaits broader discovery.

William Grant Still’s long and varied career

Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano,

saw him active in an almost overwhelming

commissioned in 1943 by violinist Louis

variety of musical activities. He was the

Kaufman for himself and his pianist wife

first Black composer to have a symphony

Annette, consists of three miniatures

performed by a major orchestra and the

connected together by their sources in

first Black to conduct a major orchestra.

Jazz Age and Depression-era American art.

He played the oboe in theater orchestras

The second of those, Mother and Child, is

for Eubie Blake, Sophie Tucker, Artie Shaw,

based on a sculpture by Sargent Claude

and Paul Whiteman. He arranged music for

Johnson (1888–1967), who brought the

NBC radio shows. He wrote nine operas.

Harlem Renaissance to California, where he

He arranged music for film composers,

practiced a wide range of artistic pursuits,


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