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Hailstork, Adolphus C.  (b. 1941) African American Composer & Professor In Memoriam: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Table of Contents   1 Music Studies   2 Professor   3 Early Compositions   4 Forms & Styles   5 Recordings

Audio Samples:
1 Cedille 90000 061; African Heritage Symphonic Series, Vol. II; Chicago Sinfonietta; Paul Freeman, Conductor
     a An American Port Of Call
     b Epitaph for a Man who Dreamed - In Memoriam: Dr. Martin
        Luther_King, Jr. (1929-1968)
2 Albany Records Troy 104 (1993); Symphonic Brotherhood: The Music of African-American Composers; Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic; Julius Williams, conductor  Symphony No. 1 

1 Music Studies
Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork is an African American composer and professor who was born on April 17, 1941 in Rochester, New York. He took piano lessons as a child.  Hailstork received a Bachelor of Music degree from Howard University in 1963. He subsequently attended the Manhattan School of Music, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition in 1965 and a Master of Music degree in Composition in 1966. During the Summer of 1963 Hailstork studied at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger. 

He served in the U.S. Armed Forces in Germany from 1966-68. Upon his return to the U.S. Hailstork attended Michigan State University, where he obtained a Ph.D. in 1971.  Theodore Presser Co. publishes his music, and profiles his career at:
www.presser.com/composers/info.cfm?Name=AdolphusHailstork 

2 Professor
The Web site of his publisher summarizes Hailstork's progress from graduate teaching assistant at Michigan State University to Eminent Scholar and Professor of Music at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia:

His career as a teacher includes graduate assistantships at Michigan State University (1969-1971), and professorships at Youngstown State University in Ohio (1971-1977), Norfolk State University in Virginia (1977-2000), and Old Dominion University, also in Norfolk, Virginia (2000- present), where he is Eminent Scholar and Professor of Music.

3 Early Compositions
Hailstork's musical The Race for Space was performed at Howard University in 1963, when he was in his senior year. Statement, Variations and Fugue was his master's thesis and was performed by the Baltimore Symphony in 1966, according to the Presser site.

4 Forms & Styles
The Presser site gives an overview of the compositional forms and styles employed by Hailstork:

Hailstork writes in a variety of forms and styles: duos for such combinations as horn and piano, clarinet and piano, flute and piano, and other symphonic works and tone poems for orchestra; a piano concerto; numerous chamber works; a large number of songs including songs for soprano, baritone, mezzo-soprano, some with piano and others with orchestra or chamber group; band works and band transcriptions, and many pieces for piano.

5 Recordings

Adolphus Hailstork: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3  American Classics, Naxos 8.559295 (2007).  David Lockington conducts the Grand Rapids Symphony.  Symphony No. 3, I. Vivace (12:00); II. Moderato (12:04); III. Scherzo (04:45); IV. Finale: Moderato (11:55).  Symphony No. 2, I. Allegro (8:00); II. Grave (10:59); III.
Allegro con brio (04:43); IV. Adagio - Allegro (13:05).

Celebration!  (3:16), Black Composers Series, Sony Music Custom Marketing Group DSO-1111 (2002).  Paul Freeman conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a 1976 recording of Celebration!  as part of the historic CBS Black Composers Series. The recording has been reissued on CD by Sony.

Epitaph for a Man who Dreamed - In Memoriam: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (7:37), and An American Port of Call (8:32);  African Heritage Symphonic Series, Vol. II,  Cedille 90000 061 (2002).  Both works were recorded by the Chicago Sinfonietta under the direction of Paul Freeman, Conductor.

Symphony No. 1  (23:10),  Symphonic Brotherhood,  Troy 104 (1993). Julius P. Williams, Conductor, leads the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic.

 

This page was last updated on September 13, 2007