taking him to many live music performances.

After graduating high school as the valedictorian, Still went on to study medicine before deciding that his true passion was music. He would serve in World War I before recommitting to music after “the Great War” ended.

He was a champion of the Harlem Renaissance while he lived in New York during the 1920’s before moving to Los Angeles in the 1930’s.

His legacy as a musician includes being the first African-American composer to write a symphony that was performed for an American audience (“Afro-American Symphony” Symphony No. 1) as well as the first African-American to conduct a major orchestra (Los Angeles Philharmonic). In 1955 William Grant Still also became the first African-American to conduct a major all-white orchestra in the deeply segregated southernUnited States (New Orleans Philharmonic).

Upon further digging, I came across a piece written on the University of Southern California News website in which they spoke to Still’s daughter. An excerpt is included below:

At the time of his death, interest in his work had dwindled to such a degree that not a single viable recording of his compositions existed and only a handful of performances of his music, including radio broadcasts, were being given on average each year.

In 1980, determined to resurrect her father’s legacy, his daughter founded William Grant Still Music, now based in Flagstaff, Ariz., where she now lives.

“This is going to be easy,” she thought at the start. “But I’d write to conductors and they wouldn’t answer, or I’d write to record companies and they’d tell