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George Walker (1922-     )

Although he started out as a highly promising concert pianist, George Walker was writing substantial music from his mid-twenties. By the time he was 40, he had solidly established himself as a flexible, fully contemporary composer and it is on his large catalog of works produced from the early '50s to about 1990 that his reputation will rest. Walker seemed destined for a fine career at the keyboard. He won acclaim with his Town Hall debut in New York in 1945 and was the first black musician to play there. Also that year, he was the first African American instrumentalist to win the Philadelphia Orchestra auditions, which led to a performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 with that orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. He toured America and Europe as a soloist through the 1950s. During this period, his presence as a black man on the classical stage surely held curiosity value, but it was through his work as a pianist and subsequently as a composer that the African American presence in classical music began to seem unexceptional. From the mid-'50s, his teaching career included short stints at various colleges and long-term affiliations with Smith College (1961 - 1968) and Rutgers University (1969 - 1992, including two years chairing the music department). "I believe that music is above race," Walker once said, and his own music does not strongly position him as an African American composer. His mature style grafts serialism onto neo-Classical forms, binding the two with complex rhythms, Hindemithian counterpoint, strong timbral contrasts, and occasional evocations of black folk music through reference to blues, spirituals, and jazz. He won the Pulitzer Prize (the first living black composer to do so) in 1996 for Lilacs, a work for soprano or tenor and orchestra, commissioned by the Boston Symphony.
- James Reel/AllMusic

COMPOSITIONS                                                            George Walker Links     ~ ~ ~     Works by Genre
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WORKS BY GENRE                                                            George Walker Links     ~ top of page ~
[under construction]
Dramatic/Theater

Orchestra

Band

Soloist(s) w/Orchestra

Chorus w/Orchestra

Choral

Chamber

Instrument and Piano

Solo Instrument

Piano

Vocal

Incidental/Film

Electronic/Electroacoustic

FOR PERCUSSION
Chamber

Solo Instrument

Marimba

Solo Percussion

Percussion Ensemble

Percussion Method Books and Etudes


GEORGE WALKER  LINKS                                                            Works by Genre      ~ top of page ~
[under construction]

Composer's website   . . .   contact George Walker:  here

George Walker @ Wikipedia
George Walker @ American Composers Forum
George Walker @ Answers.com
George Walker @ Art + Culture
George Walker @ Art of the States
George Walker @ Audiophile Audition (via Google Advanced Search)  http://www.google.com/advanced_search
George Walker @ Classic Cat
George Walker @ Classical Archives
George Walker @ Classical Composers Database
George Walker @ Classical Net
George Walker @ ClassicsToday (via Google Advanced Search)  http://www.google.com/advanced_search
George Walker @ composition:today/   http://www.compositiontoday.com/composers/a.asp
George Walker @ Dr. Estrella's Incredibly Abridged Dictionary of Composers
George Walker @ Facebook
George Walker @ Grawemeyer Awards
George Walker @ IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
George Walker @ IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library
George Walker @ InstantEncore
George Walker @ IRCAM / http://brahms.ircam.fr/composers/alphabetical-order/r/
George Walker @ Karadar Classical Music/ find via /   http://www.google.com/advanced_search
George Walker @ Klassika/ http://www.klassika.info  /  http://www.google.com/advanced_search
George Walker @ LinkedIn
George Walker @ Modern Classical / http://www.modernclassical.com/20tha.html
George Walker @ MSN Music
George Walker @ Music Academy Online
George Walker @ MusicWeb International
George Walker @ musicianguide.com / http://www.musicianguide.com/
George Walker @ MySpaceMusic
George Walker @ Naxos
George Walker @ New Music USA [formerly American Music Center]   http://library.newmusicusa.org/?amc=true
George Walker @ The New York Times
George Walker @ NNDB
George Walker @ W.W. Norton
George Walker @ Piano Society [Bowles; William Duckworth; Heino Eller; Mompou; Respighi; Turina]
George Walker @ The Pulitzer Prizes / http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Music
George Walker @ REC Music Foundation /The Lied and Art Song Texts Page
George Walker @ US Opera/  http://www.usopera.com/composers/

http://www.musicsage.org

Publisher
George Walker @ Composer's website/publisher listings
George Walker @ Alphonse Leduc
George Walker @ Boosey & Hawkes
George Walker @ Chester Novello
George Walker @ Carl Fischer
George Walker @ Oxford University Press
George Walker @ Peermusic
George Walker @ Edition Peters
George Walker @ Theodore Presser
George Walker @ G. Schirmer
George Walker @ Schott Music
George Walker @ Universal Edition

Streaming Audio
George Walker @ Composer's website  -  check under individual work listings
George Walker @ Classical Archives
George Walker @ last.fm
George Walker @ MySpaceMusic
George Walker @ NPRmusic
George Walker @ PRX (Public Radio Exchange)/   http://www.prx.org/
George Walker @ Rhapsody.com
George Walker @ SoundCloud

Recordings
George Walker @ Composer's website
George Walker @ Amazon.com
George Walker @ ArkivMusic
George Walker @ CD Baby
George Walker @ CD Universe
George Walker @ ClassicsOnline
George Walker @ Discogs
George Walker @ itunes  https://itunes.apple.com
George Walker @ Naxos

Video
George Walker @ YouTube
George Walker @ Google Video
George Walker @ Vimeo (via Google Advanced Search)  http://www.google.com/advanced_search

 Composer on Composer: On Composing (streaming audio)
Composer, composerComposers Speak on the Web at Pytheas
                            ~ click on composer picture to listen ~




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