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Excerpts from - Landmarks in the Life of a Composer: George

By Jennifer Kolterman

Born in 1922, George Walker grew up and lived in a time of challenges for all composers of art music in America and particularly for African Americans in the United States. Stylistically his music is set amidst the context of Stravinsky’s primitivism, Copland’s nationalism, and Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system, to name just a few of the diverse influences he certainly felt during his formative years as a composer. Yet his first work is markedly personal. His first composition, Lyric for Strings, is dedicated to his deceased grandmother. Through no conscious effort to be this, Walker became a man of many "firsts" within the black community, breaking down racial barriers and composing and creating art music during a time of the Civil Rights movement and beyond. Among other accomplishments, Walker was the first person of color to receive a doctor of music degree from the Eastman School of Music as well as the first black man to receive a Pulitzer Prize in music, an award which he earned for his composition Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra. Composed at very different phases of his career these pieces, Lyric for Strings and Lilacs, juxtaposed are reflective of Walker’s growth as a composing genius as well as reminiscent of a life that has spanned one of the most musically dynamic centuries in all of music history.

George Walker began his musical journey at the young age of five when his mother supervised his very first piano lesson under the direction of Mamie Pinkney Henrey. He was educated in the public school system of Washington D.C. until the age of 14 when he began his studies in music at Oberlin College in 1937. It was during this period of his life that Walker was formulating his goals and aspirations of becoming a serious musician. Upon his graduation from Oberlin in 1938 with distinct honors, he went on to the Curtis Institute of Music where he began postgraduate work from 1941-1945. At this renowned music school, Walker studied piano under Rudof Serkin and composition under Rosario Scalero, incidentally the same teacher of Samuel Barber, to whom Walker has often been compared.

Upon his graduation, Walker was the winner of the Philadelphia Youth Auditions, appearing with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy as well as awarded a Town Hall recital in 1945. Following this, Walker studied abroad at the American Academy in Fontainebleau, France and came back to Rochester, New York to finish his doctoral work at the Eastman School of Music in 1957. During his educational endeavors, Walker received an entire "grocery list" of awards and honors including a Fullbright Fellowship as well as a John Hay Whitney Fellowship.

Walker has also taught in many capacities around the United States beginning at Dillard University in New Orleans before he enrolled in his doctoral program. His next position came in 1960 at the Dalcroze School of Music. He then moved on to serve students in many universities including The New School for Social Research, Smith College, the University of Colorado, Peabody Institute, University of Delaware, and Rutgers University from which he retired from teaching in 1992.

George Walker has accomplished much throughout his life, being the first person of African-American descent to do many things. Instead of fighting for equality during the Civil Rights movement however, Walker decided to take the road of ‘vindication’. He fought the fight by following the path of "cultural equality". It was his belief that equality came in through the culture that minorities acquired. Instead of making an audible difference between "black" and "white" music, he composed, along with other black composers works that fit into Western classical music, making the collision of the two "natural, commonplace, and inevitable". It was George Walker’s desire that one would look at the "artist as an individual" and not at the color of his or her skin. He said in an interview conducted for the book, The Black Composer Speaks, that, "I (He) would hesitate to say that anything in my (his) music is uniquely black". Admittedly, he often uses inspiration from black music such as spirituals, blues, and jazz, but mostly only alludes to them, not making them the core of his pieces or style.

Through his lifetime thus far, Walker has created more than 80 compositions, yet he still strives to make each of them feel "fresh and free" of any repetition. His style often fuses "classical, modern, popular, and folk materials into a challenging yet expressive language".

George Walker’s style has greatly evolved from his first major composition, Lyric for String, which is actually an orchestrated version of the slower movement of his complete work, String Quartet No. 1, composed in 1946. He composed and dedicated this piece to his deceased grandmother, Malvina King. Before he settled on the previous title, Walker named this composition, Lament for Orchestra – Lyric for M.K…..

…This piece is significant in George Walker’s life, as it was his first major work that was published. Also, Walker seems to have drawn this piece from a rather introspective place, dedicating it to his grandmother. Perhaps he meant it to depict her life, trying to show the beauty of its coming and its going with controlled grace and dignity…

…Perhaps the most recognized piece in Walker’s career is at present Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra. This piece was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This piece also earned Walker the coveted Pulitzer Prize in music in 1996, making him the first black man to receive this honor. In stark contrast to Lyric for Strings, Lilacs shows an array of disjunct melodies, frequent time changes, as well as difficult rhythmic patterns for the voice and orchestra…

…Walker’s use of chromaticism and disjunct leaps throughout the piece make it a stark contrast to his first piece, Lyric for Strings. In his first piece, Lyric for Strings, Walker exercises tonal center, and lyric and conjunct movement throughout. This is contrary to what is found in Lilacs, as it leaps from note to note without fluid melodic lines and disjunctly moves forward. The presence of text is an obvious difference between the two pieces, however Walker is able to capture and convey the essence and meaning of each piece regardless of the presence of text. Although each piece is starkly different, each is masterfully written to convey the mood and feeling Walker was aiming for through his music.

Although George Walker had produced amazing compositions before Lilacs such as Lyric for String, which holds a more personal meaning to him, he had never received the honor of such a well-known award as the Pulitzer. Winning this award earned him a lot of recognition, as being a "black" composer, as he was indeed the first African-American to receive this award in music. Although this was a breakthrough in the eyes of most people, Walker saw it as another of his aspiration realized. When asked if the award had "special meaning" to him, being the first black composer to earn such recognition, his reply was, "Well, the meaning for me is essentially a kind of culmination of the aspiration of—of—success in this particular area, a major prize, and of course it does mean something to me to know that I, I have been selected to win it, and because I am black, and because no other blacks have won the competition, that I’m therefore the first".

George Walker is a humble man, as portrayed in the many interviews and writings on his successful life. He was determined to write beautiful music and share it with the world, with pieces that would, "speak directly to the listener". This was his only goal, not to be the activist, or the man in the spotlight, but rather an instrument to meld music together, breaking down racial or political barriers and showing "cultural equality".