George Walker OC'94 wins Pulitzer for composition

A piano major and organ minor, he was in his senior year at Oberlin when he decided to take a class in composition instead of organ. Thus began 1941 graduate George Walker's study of composition-a study that, 55 years and more than 70 works later, has resulted in his being awarded the 1996 Pulitzer Prize in music.

The decision was announced on Tuesday, April 9. Since then, the volume of "letters, flowers, cookies, and gifts" has been "overwhelming," according to George Walker. He said the best thing about winning the Pulitzer Prize has been hearing from people he hasn't heard from in years.

George Walker's winning composition "Lilacs" is a 16 minute work for soprano and orchestra based on the Walt Whitman poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed." In writing the piece, George Walker said he was really concerned with "the essence of a poem and how it could be translated into a lyrical musical statement." While childhood memories of lilacs at a relative's home in Virginia allowed him to personally relate to the poem, George Walker emphasized that the poem itself was the inspiration, along with the varied symbols of nature that occur in it.

Dean of the Conservatory Karen Wolff articulated a personal interest in obtaining a copy of the score of "Lilacs" and investigating possibilities for the work's future performance at Oberlin. "He's an incredibly skillful craftsman and a composer of the first rank," she said of George Walker, adding that the Conservatory is "very, very proud to have him as an alum."

George Walker is not the first Oberlin alum to win the Pulitzer Prize in music. The 1991 award went to alum Christopher Rouse for his trombone concerto.

However, George Walker does have the added distinction of being the first black composer to win the award in its 80 years of existence. While George Walker said that this certainly gives him "great personal satisfaction," he also emphasized that the criteria which must be met by submitted works is very strict and that alone partly explains why a black composer has not won previously. He cited Duke Ellington as an example of a black composer that the public might believe to have been wrongly denied of the award, despite the fact that Ellington's jazz compositions would not have been eligible to win. The awards are given out only to classical compositions.

While some media sources reported that George Walker initially commented on how this year's award has recognized a "minority group within a minority group" in its recognition of a black composer in the field of classical music, George Walker said that he never alluded to that in his discussion with the press. "I think the reporters embellished a lot on what I said-I suppose to make a good story better," he said.

However, George Walker said that he didn't necessarily disagree with the statement. "The fact, of course, always has been that black composers have not had the opportunity to have their work performed," he said. Also, while "so many persons consider black composers in depth in the area of jazz," George Walker said people often tend to think that black classical composers "don't exist."

George Walker's sister Frances Walker, who is a professor emeritus of pianoforte at the Conservatory, said she thinks her brother "deserves to be the first black composer to win because of his gift, his output, the quality of the work he has done, and his dedication."

"He takes no time off," Francis Walker said of her brother. "He is completely, totally engulfed in music."

Noting the variety of works her brother has produced, Francis Walker believes the Conservatory should "do a whole program of George Walker." She herself has performed several of her brother's compositions for piano at Oberlin-including some works that he has dedicated to her.

"I really love his music, especially his music for the piano," Francis Walker said. She just listened to "Lilacs" on Tuesday after receiving a recording of it from her brother in the mail. "Very, very beautiful," is how she described the piece.

By the time Francis Walker started playing the piano at age four, her older brother had already been playing for a few years; four years older than his sister, George Walker began playing when he was five.

"The piano was going all the time in our house-from 6:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m.," Francis Walker said. She remembers how her brother was "always teaching" her as well. "It didn't matter that I had another teacher," she said. "He [George Walker] had different ideas."

Speaking about her brother's graduation from high school at age 14, Francis Walker said that George Walker was "good at pretty much everything." He was also a junior tennis champion in Washington, D.C., where they grew up. George Walker would wake Slocum up early in the morning to "bang balls against the wall," she recalled. "...Which I absolutely hated."

When George Walker graduated from Oberlin in 1941 at age 18, Francis Walker was here to attend his senior recital. He played the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto-one of the most difficult piano concertos-Slocum recalled. "It's a performance I will never forget," she said. "There's no one who's been able to do that since."

After Oberlin, George Walker went on to the Curtis School of Music to study piano with Rudolf Serkin. His European tour in 1953 was well received, and may have led to a career as a concert pianist, had George Walker not developed an ulcer that left him in "agony" for most of the tour.

After earning his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music in 1956, George Walker went to France to study with Nadia Boulanger, the person he credits as being the first to really see his talent in composing.

When asked about what composing gives him that performing does not, George Walker said that he likes the mental activity involved. "It's not totally different from playing piano," he said, "but there's the aspect that once you put something down on paper, it's there and isn't erased. A composition can always be improved upon."

As a composer, George Walker's commissions include works for the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As a teacher, he has held positions at Smith College in Massachusetts, the University of Colorado, and Rutgers University. According to Francis Walker, George Walker was once also the person whom David Moyer (George Walker's teacher at Oberlin in the 1950s) picked to take his place in the piano department at Oberlin when he retired. George Walker was not given the job.

Now retired from teaching, George Walker said that he is currently working on some organ pieces and looking forward to a commission for the New Jersey Symphony.

What George Walker would like now, he said, is for "more persons to know more of his music."