Synopsis

At New York City’s Town Hall on today’s date in 1968, the New England Festival Quartet premiered a new chamber work by American composer George Walker.

Walker’s String Quartet No. 2 was sandwiched on the program between the String Quartet No. 11 by Beethoven and Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet, with Walker performing the piano part in the Schumann — not surprisingly, since in addition to studying composition at the Curtis Institute, Walker had also studied piano, with Rudolf Serkin, no less. 

“What was gratifying was the fact that the Walker Quartet held up very well between two such strong works,” The New York Times music critic wrote the following day.

28 years later, in 1996, Walker would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music — the first African-American composer to do so. But then, that was only one of his remarkable firsts. He was also the first Black graduate of the Curtis Institute in 1945, the first Black musician to play New York’s Town Hall that same year, the first Black recipient of a doctorate from the Eastman School in 1955, and the first Black tenured faculty member at Smith College in 1961.

Music Played in Today's Program

George Walker (1922-2018): String Quartet No. 2; Son Sonora String Quartet; Naxos 8559659