Audio Recordings

William Grant Still’s Out of the Silence

This week’s Audio Flashback is William Grant Still‘s meditative Out of the Silence. Still, the first African-American to have a symphony performed by a major U.S. orchestra, wrote this work as part of Seven Traceries, a set of mystical piano pieces intended as musical portraits of God, which were subsequently orchestrated by the composer. The Orchestra Now performed this piece outdoors (hence the crickets you will hear in the background!) with conductor James Bagwell last September, opening the Out of the Silence festival, presented with the Bard Music Festival and the Fisher Center at Bard.