Still, William Grant

(born May 11, 1895, Woodville, Miss., U.S.—died Dec. 3, 1978, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. composer. He initially intended to be a doctor but instead studied music at Oberlin College, learning clarinet, oboe, and violin. He studied composition with George Chadwick (1854–1931) and Edgard Varèse. In the 1920s he worked as an arranger for the dance-band leader Paul Whiteman and for the blues composer W.C. Handy. Still's early style was avant-garde (From the Black Belt, 1926), but from c. 1930 he sought to develop a distinctive African American art music in five symphonies (including his Afro-American Symphony, 1931), ballets, operas, and choral and solo vocal works.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica