William L. Dawson

William Levi Dawson (1899–1990) was a pioneering African American composer, conductor and educator. Born in Anniston, Alabama, he ran away from home at thirteen to study at the Tuskegee Institute, the historically Black college to which he later returned to build a celebrated music programme, making the Tuskegee Choir internationally famous through his masterful arrangements of spirituals. His major orchestral work, the Negro Folk Symphony, made him one of the first African American composers to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra. Dawson devoted much of his life to preserving and elevating the African American spiritual, and his choral arrangements remain staples of the repertoire. He was a foundational figure in the recognition of Black American concert music.