![]() ![]() (It is one of many holograph scores by Still in our collections, including From the Black Belt, Symphony No. The Music Division holds a piano-vocal holograph score of Rising Tide by William Grant Still because it was submitted for copyright registration by his publisher J. Six minutes later, they exited down the Helicline, a curving ramp from which they would glimpse their first overview of the Fair. Each hour, more than 8,000 spectators entered through the Trylon, a triangular obelisk 610 feet high and ascended to Democracity on the world’s two largest escalators. André Foulihoux, the Perisphere was the largest globe ever built – 180 feet in diameter, 18 stories in height, twice the size of Radio City Music Hall. Still’s composition Rising Tide (sometimes referred to as Victory Tide), with lyrics by Albert Stillman, played on a constant loop inside the Perisphere for the multi-media exhibit Democracity (or The City of Tomorrow), a vision of urban life in the future with projected images, narration, and music.ĭesigned by Wallace K. ![]() Those sources reveal the truth only primary sources can tell, that Still’s initial selection did encounter racist push-back during the process. Although publicly touted as a color-blind competition, original records in the New York Public Library’s official records of the 1939 New York World’s Fair and scholarship produced from them disprove this gentle version of the story. Handy, and first African-American to conduct a major symphony orchestra (the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1936) – was commissioned by the New York World’s Fair, Inc. In 1938, William Grant Still (1895-1978) – the Mississippi-born composer, student of George Whitefield Chadwick and Edgar Varèse, blues mentee of W.C. The country is a decade into the Great Depression and on the brink of a second world war.Īnd, music in our collections played a starring role it all. Admission to the World’s Fair is 75 cents. The fair commemorates the 150 th anniversary of George Washington’s presidential inauguration in New York City while looking forward to “The World of Tomorrow.” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gives the first televised address of any American president. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, It’s Sunday, April 30, 1939, the opening day of the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens, New York City. ![]() Handy (right) look at Still’s commissioned score for the New York World’s Fair with the Trylon and Perisphere under construction in the background. 80 Years Later: Music from the 1939 New York World’s Fair ![]()
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