Inspiring Music From the ‘Dean of Afro-American Composers’

LA JOLLA, California — I was thrilled to discover, in my mailbox last week, the long-awaited CD of music by the American composer, William Grant Still, with my sister Zina Schiff as violin soloist and my niece Avlana Eisenberg conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Zina and Avlana recorded this magnificent CD in Glasgow, Scotland, just before the pandemic hit. That worldwide disruption managed to delay the release date. I could hardly wait to listen to this new Naxos American Classics.

Accolades are already coming in from all over the world. William Grant Still’s granddaughter, PBS and NPR broadcaster, Celeste Headlee, calls the album “a treasure.” She says, “As a Black composer, my grandfather worked so hard to get his works recorded, but by the time he passed away, very few of his works had been recorded by any orchestra. How fulfilling and wonderful it is to have an entire album of his pieces never recorded before, all beautifully played.”

In the Classical Music Daily, Gerald Fenech, concludes his detailed review: “This is a marvelously exciting hour of music by a composer of substance…A peach of an issue, superbly performed, recorded and annotated.”

From Germany’s public radio station WDR3:

“Die Geigerin Zina Schiff spielt das Stück so warm und gefühlvoll getragen, dass ich ihr stundenlang zuhören könnte” — “The violinist Zina Schiff plays the piece so warmly and emotionally that I could listen to her for hours.”

For a taste of this wonderful recording, watch below:

Zina had already recorded six of Still’s pieces for her 1997 CD, HERE’S ONE, featuring works for violin and piano by American composers. Therefore, I was familiar with two of the works on the new recording, Summerland and Quit Dat Foolnish, from their violin-piano versions. However, their violin-orchestral renditions revealed greater sound textures and nuances, projected by Zina’s soulful playing and shaped by Avlana’s sensitive conducting of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, one of the world’s great ensembles.

Zina met composer William Grant Still when she was a child in Peter Meremblum’s California Junior Symphony. Still would often come to the famous youth orchestra’s rehearsals and concerts, including the one where Zina was the soloist in the Vivaldi Concerto in G minor.

The other orchestral works in this premiere recording include the three-movement American Suite, the composer’s first symphonic work, which he wrote while still attending Wilberforce University; Fanfare for the 99th Fighter Squadron, honoring the Tuskegee Airmen; Serenade, commissioned by an orchestra in Great Falls, Montana; and Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius, commissioned by Fabien Sevitsky. Avlana conducted these with authority, highlighting all facets of their beauty.

Once before, among the 16 CDs Zina Schiff has recorded, she and Avlana Eisenberg have teamed up, in the 2011 MSR Classics recording: Sibelius Violin Concerto, Barber Violin Concerto, Ben-Haim Three Songs Without Words with the MAV Symphony Orchestra of Budapest, Hungary.

Meanwhile, I am savoring this recording of William Grant Still’s inspiring music. He is deservedly called the “Dean of Afro-American Composers.”