{"id":2415,"date":"2013-09-26T18:55:18","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T22:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christmasclassics.com\/christmasmusic\/?p=2415"},"modified":"2013-09-26T19:01:08","modified_gmt":"2013-09-26T23:01:08","slug":"christmas-classics-person-day-william-l-dawson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christmasclassics.com\/christmasmusic\/christmas-classics-person-day-william-l-dawson","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Classics PERSON OF THE DAY: William L. Dawson"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day in 1898, William Levi Dawson was born in Anniston, Alabama. He was an acclaimed African-American composer, conductor, and trombonist who wrote a wonderful arrangement of the Christmas spiritual Mary Had a Baby<\/span><\/strong>, <\/i>a carol with two distinct lyrical texts. <\/i>In some circles Dawson was called the \u201cfather of the Negro spiritual\u201d although such a sobriquet might be contested by the John Works family also noted for its scholarship of Negro folk music.<\/p>\n

Dawson was determined to earn a music education. Although black students were prohibited from attending classes, several professors helped him to clandestinely pursued\u00a0his bachelor degree at night from the Horner Institute of Fine Arts in Kansas City. By day he taught at the\u00a0 city\u2019s Lincoln High School. His formal studies continued at the Chicago Musical College and the American Conservatory of Music, the latter from which he earned his master degree. He also enjoyed a career as a trombonist for both the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and Redpath Chautauqua, a campground assembly that usually gathered during the summer for music events or literary, moral, and scientific lectures.<\/p>\n

The composer\u2019s career, however, was primarily devoted to teaching at the college level. In 1931 he went to teach at Tuskegee University in Alabama where he soon himself the founding chairperson of its School of Music. During his tenure at Tuskegee, ending in 1956, Dawson achieved greatness as a composer. His body of work included arrangements and variations of spirituals, including his popular Ezekiel Saw the Wheel<\/i><\/span><\/strong>, King Jesus is a-Listening<\/i><\/span><\/strong>, and Jesus Walked the Lonesome Valley<\/i><\/strong><\/span>, and other spirituals that are widely published and regularly performed by school and community choral programs. In the classical realm, he is best known for Negro Folk Symphony<\/span><\/strong>,<\/i> reputedly the first of its kind by a black composer, which premiered in 1934 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of the dynamic Leopold Stokowski.<\/p>\n

The lyrical text of Mary Had a Baby<\/i><\/span><\/strong> may date from the 18th century when it was probably sung at religious revival camp meetings where a “call and response” technique was utilized to unify the congregation in worship. After the Civil War, this musical style became more prevalent in black churches, especially those of the rural South, whose members learned it from their ancestors, almost all of whom were slaves.<\/p>\n

As with most of his arrangements, Dawson employed black folk song idioms to Mary Had a<\/i> <\/i><\/span><\/strong>Baby, <\/span><\/strong><\/i>an important addition to AMERICAN CHRISTMAS CLASSICS <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/strong>. Inspired by the spiritual text, he creates a heightened sense of dignity, despite the humble manger setting, of Mary the mother giving birth to her baby who is richly exalted as \u201cKing Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"William<\/a>

William L. Dawson<\/p><\/div>\n

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