An aunt of William Grant Still's once asked him, "Billy, what do you do?" "I compose music," Still replied. "Yes, I know," she said. "But what do you do? Haven't you any work?"
At 53, big-eyed Billy Still still has no "work." But he is the U.S.'s leading Negro composer. His melodic, sometimes fiercely rhythmic symphonies and tone poems have been performed by Stokowski,
Rodzinski and Monteux. He was the first Negro to conduct a major U.S. orchestra (the Los Angeles Philharmonic). But somehow, the big breaks that have brought fame & fortune to less...
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