A Portrait
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If you like Schuman or Copland, you'll find Walker's music of great interest.

George Walker, the Pulitzer Prize winning composer, began to study composition seriously after graduating from Oberlin College. After having been accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia to study piano with Rudolf Serkin, he was accepted into the composition class of Sosario Scalero, teacher of Samuel Barber and Gian-Carlo Menotti. He completed his first string quartet before embarking on a career as a concert pianist. In 1956 he became the first black recipient of the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the Eastman School of Music. Although his degree was in piano (he never studied composition at the Eastman School), he composed his Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra, Second Piano Sonata, and Sonata for Cello and Piano while residing in Rochester, New York. In 1957, as a Fulbright Fellow in piano, he continued to compose under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Returning to the United States in 1958, he began to amass a catalog of more than 70 published works that have been performed by renowned ensembles and conductors throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. The composition dates of the works on this recording range in date from the sixties to the mid-eighties and present a variety of forces. There is a work for organ, Variations for Orchestra and a cantata for soloists, boys choir and chamber orchestra. The cantata is performed by the Boys Choir of Harlem on this recording.
Contents:
George Walker, composer
Five Fancies for Clarinet and Piano Four Hands
Eric Thomas, clarinet, Vivian Taylor and John McDonald, piano


George Walker, composer
Antifonys for Chamber Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Paul Freeman, conductor


George Walker, composer
An Eastman Overture
Eastman Philharmonia, David Effron, conductor


George Walker, composer
Variations for Orchestra
New Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Freeman, conductor


George Walker, composer
Cantata for Soprano, Tenor, Boys Choir and Chamber Orchestra
Joyce Mathis, soprano, Walter Turnbull, tenor, Boys Choir of Harlem, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Warren Wilson, conductor


George Walker, composer
Three Pieces for Organ
Mickey Terry, organ

Review:
"... a worthwhile contribution to the contemporary repertoire... this recording is important because we do not have much of Walker's output on disc, and he is undoubtedly one of our most important African-American composers of concert music." (Fanfare)
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