african american composers

Story of the first grand opera written by an African-American, William Grant Still, to be produced by a major American opera company, as told through original source material.

Contains eighty-eight articles that provide information about the lives and careers of composers of African heritage living in countries around the world; each with a biographical sketch, works list, bibliography, discography, and critical essays about the composer and his/her works. Arranged alphabetically from Abrams to Jenkins.

Biography of Billy Strayhorn, the jazz composer who worked as songwriter and arranger for Duke Ellington's orchestra, writing many of the group's best-known pieces, making many friends in the music world of Harlem and Paris, and dying of cancer at the age of fifty-one.

Traces the life of the African American classical composer.