Afro-American Symphony

Afro-American Symphony, also known as Symphony No. 1 "Afro-American" and Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major, is a 1930 composition by William Grant Still, the first symphony written by an African American and performed for a United States audience by a leading orchestra. It was premiered in 1931 by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and later published in 1935.^[1] It is a symphonic piece for full orchestra, including celeste, harp, and tenor banjo. It combines a fairly traditional symphonic form with blues progressions and rhythms that were characteristic of popular African-American music at the time. This combination expressed Still's integration of black culture into the classical forms.^{[citation needed]} Still used quotes from four poems by early 20th-century African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar as epigraphs for each symphonic movement. The symphony is about twenty-four minutes long.