Musicians You Should Know: George Walker

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Basic Facts

Born: June 27, 1922, Washington, D.C.
Died: August 24, 2018, Montclair, New Jersey
Type of Performer: Composer, pianist
Genre: Classical
Awards/Notable Achievements:
  1. First Black pianist to play a concert at New York City Town Hall
  2. First Black instrumentalist to solo with the Philadelphia Orchestra
  3. First Black graduate of the Curtis Institute
  4. Fulbright Award winner (1957)
  5. John Hay Whitney Fellowship winner (1957)
  6. Honorary member of the Frederic Chopin Society (awarded 1963)
  7. First Black composer to win a Pulitzer Prize for music (1996)
  8. American Academy of Arts and Letters inductee (1999)
  9. American Classical Music Hall of Fame inductee (2001)
  10. ASCAP Aaron Copeland Award (2012)

About George Walker

Born in Washington D.C. in 1922, George Walker was introduced to music from an early age. His mother started him on piano at the age of five. At age 14, he presented his first public recital at the Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel at Howard University. He went on to study piano at Oberlin starting in 1937, and then at Curtis Institute of Music. He graduated from Curtis in 1945, the first Black person to do so. He would go on to be a lot of "firsts." 

Walker became the first Black performer to play at New York City's Town Hall when he presented his debut recital there in 1945. Two weeks later, he became the first Black instrumentalist to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1946, he composed his String Quartet No. 1, the first movement of which ("Lyric for Strings") became the most-performed orchestral work by a living American composer. He went on to become the first Black musician to be signed by a major management agent and in 1954 he made a well-acclaimed and unprecedented European tour. Upon returning to the U.S. he enrolled in and received his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, then went back to Paris to study for two years with famed pedagogue and composer Nadia Boulanger. Beginning in 1960, he held a series of faculty positions at colleges all over the United States and built a strong career as a teacher.

Walker composed over 90 works during his life and earned numerous awards, honorary doctorates, and commissions. Although his music was firmly in the classical genre, he drew on jazz and African American spirituals. His compositions have been featured in programs for orchestras all over the country, as well as on PBS's "Great Performances" series. In 1996, he became the first Black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for his composition Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra. He was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2001 in a ceremony at the Library of Congress. He remained an active composer until his death in 2018 at the age of 96.

Listen

Lyric for Strings, performed by Chineke! at the BBC Proms (2017)


Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra, performed by the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra


Further Reading


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