Still: From the Black Belt

Description

Prolific and influential, many call William Grant Still the "Dean of African American composers" and it's not hard to see why. The first African-American to conduct in a Major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony (his first symphony) performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a Major opera company, and the first to have an opera performed on national television, William Grant Still broke barriers.

The "Black belt" refers to a region in the southern United States that was distinguished by the color of its fertile soil. It was an area whose rich economy was based on cotton and tobacco plantations that were controlled by rich white people and worked by poor black laborers. Still's piece From the Black Belt from 1926 is presumably a musical representation of these laborers.