Lesser-Known Composer of the Month: Adolphus Hailstork

Wait, Who?

Adolphus Hailstork was born in Rochester and grew up in Albany, New York.  As a child he played violin; he began singing choral music in junior high school and also took piano and organ lessons.  He first began composing under the encouragement of his high school orchestra director.

After graduating with a degree in theory from Howard University, he spent a summer in France studying with Nadia Boulanger.  Upon returning to the United States he enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned degrees in composition.  After a stint in the army, during which he ran an officer's club in Germany, he earned his doctorate from the University of Michigan.

Hailstork has taught at Youngstown State University and Norfolk State University, and is currently a professor and composer-in-residence at Old Dominion.  His honors and awards include a Fullbright fellowship and two honorary doctorates, and he has been named a Cultural Laureate of the state of Virginia.

Hailstork has made a conscious effort to avoid being pigeonholed as a composer of any one type of music, although his numerous choral works and band pieces are probably his best known.  However, he has also written several symphonies and other orchestral pieces, chamber works for various combinations of instruments, solo piano and organ music, and several song cycles.

His dramatic music includes an oratorio, a musical comedy, and an opera based on the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar.