Still, William Grant (1895–1978)

US composer. His music employs American elements, blues melodies, and American folk songs.

He was educated at Wilberforce University and studied music at Oberlin Conservatory; later he studied with George Chadwick at Boston and with Edgard Varèse. The Afro-American Symphony of 1930 was the first by a black US composer to be performed by a major orchestra and the opera Troubled Island (1949) was the first premiere given by the newly-formed City Center Opera Company of New York.

Works Stage operas, including Blue Steel (1934), Troubled Island (1949), A Bayou Legend (1941, first performance 1974), Highway no. 1 (1942–63), Costaso (1949, first performance 1992), Minette Fontaine (1958, first performance 1985); ballets La Guiablesse (1927) and Sahdji (1930).

Choral and orchestral Lenox Avenue for radio announcer, chorus, and orchestra (1937); five symphonies, including Afro-American Symphony (no. 1, 1930), Africa, Poem, Phantom Chapel for strings and other orchestral works.

Other Kaintuck for piano and orchestra (1935); From the Black Belt and Log Cabin Ballads for chamber orchestra.