Biography of William Dawson (Essay Sample)

WILLIAM DAWSONYourFirstName YourLastNameCourse TitleAugust 16, 2014 William DawsonWilliam Dawson is an African American music educator, composer and performer. William Levi Dawson was born in 1899 and he died in 1990. He used the rich vitality of the musical heritage he had as a basis for all known types of music, which included arrangements of folk songs and also original compositions . William Dawson was born in 1899 in Anniston, Ala. He was the first born of the seven children to George W. Dawson and Eliza Starkey Dawson.At 13 years of age, he ran away from their home to go to Tuskegee Institute University. He managed to support himself by manual labor, and he was a member of the band and orchestra Tuskegee University. He completed his University education in 1921 at Tuskegee. William Dawson studied orchestration and composition with Henry V. Stearns at Washburn College found in Topeka, and he also studied counterpoint with Sir Carl Busch in Kansas City . In 1925 Dawson received a degree in Theory of Bachelor of Music at the Horner Institute of Fine Arts in Kansas City. At the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, he studied music composition with Adolph Weidig and was then graduated with a master’s degree in composition in 1927 . Following Dawson’s graduation, he studied with theorist Thorvald Otterstrom and the distinguished composer of Chicago.The membership of Dawson in the band and orchestra at Tuskegee University had been an excellent professional preparation for him serving as the first trombonist with the Chicago Civic Orchestra from 1926-1930. In 1929 Dawson won the contest of Chicago Daily News for the band directors, and in 1930 he won Wanamaker Contest prizes for the orchestral composition "Scherzo" and the song "Jump Back, Honey, Jump Back." In 1931, William Dawson became the director of the School of Music at Tuskegee University. From 1932-1933, Dawson conducted the 100-voice a cappella choir of the Tuskegee institute in a month's engagement at the official opening of the International Music Hall of Radio City, and in the concerts at Carnegie Hall of New York City, the White House, and also another one at the Constitution Hall, both in a series of national and series of international broadcasts and Washington, DC. In 1934, under the sponsorship of the United States’ president and the State Department, the Tuskegee Institute Choir made a concert tour of interracial and international good will to the Europe, British Isles and the former U.S.S.R. Leading critics in America and also abroad praised the Tuskegee choir highly.William Dawson had a wide experience as a consultant and a director to festival groups. In the year 1956, Tuskegee Institute conferred upon Dawson the honorary degree of doctor of music degree and he was then sent by the State Department of the United States to perform several choral groups in Spain. Although his choral groups’ arrangements were very popular, he was well known for his Negro Folk Symphony that had its world premiere in 1934 by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra that was under Leopold Stokowski. In this musical work, the composer made use of rhythmic and melodic language that was borrowed from the Negro spirituals, having with it the original materials in the same idiom. His symphony was highly imaginative and dramatic, and it was colorfully orchestrated . In the year 1952, William Dawson visited different seven countries in the West African region to study music of the indigenous Africans. He then later revised his Negro Folk Symphony, where he infused it with a rhythmic foundation that was inspired by the African influences .William Dawson was the guest conductor with the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra in 1966, the 1966 Nashville Symphony Orchestra, the 1970 Wayne State University Glee Club of Michigan, and the 1975 Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He was named in 1975 to the Alabama Arts Hall of Fame, and he got the Alumni Merit Award in 1983 from Tuskegee Institute. He then died on 4th May, 1990. William Dawson pursued other music studies upon his graduation from the Tuskegee Institute, and he held various music positions, as well. His legacy as a composer lives on through the Golden Voices Choir of the Tuskegee University that he started and directed for close to a century ago.William Dawson returned to teach in the Tuskegee Institute in 1931, and he ran the Department of Music for 25 years. He was also virtually the whole music faculty at the Tuskegee Institute from 1931-1956. He then developed the Tuskegee University choir into an ensemble that is internationally known.  William Dawson directed the Tuskegee Choir that was invited to perform in 1932 at the Radio Music Hall in New York City for one week of six performances daily. We get to learn more from Dominique-René de Lerma that William Dawson seemed to get frustrated on certain occasion, and he submitted his r...