Lenox Avenue

• Lenox Avenue (composed 1937) started life as an orchestral suite for orchestra and narrator, written as a response to a commission from CBS Radio. The work premiered on the radio on May 23, 1937. The narration was by Still’s frequent librettist Verna Arvey. Arvey and Still would marry in 1939.¹
• In May 1938, Norma Gould choreographed Lenox Avenue as a ballet for the Dance Theater Group in Los Angeles.²

“Lenox Avenue is a series of ten orchestral episodes and finale, built on scenes the composer had witnessed in Harlem, for orchestra, chorus and announcer, the narration being written by Verna Arvey. This was commissioned by the Columbia Broadcasting System on the first American Composers’ Commission. It received its first performance over a national broadcast under the baton of Howard Barlow on May 23, 1937 and was repeated on October 17, 1937. The composer has since conducted it on many occasions in concert.”

Verna Arvey, William Grant Still (New York: J. Fischer & Bro., 1939), 333-334.³

1. Gayle Murchison and Catherine Parsons Smith, “Still, William Grant,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed July 2, 2021, https://oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000026776. 
2. Verna Arvey, William Grant Still (New York: J. Fischer & Bro., 1939), 334, UC Press E-Books Collection, accessed July 2, 2021, https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1h4nb0g0&chunk.id=d0e10910&toc.depth=100&toc.id=d0e10910&brand=ucpress.  
3. Ibid., 333-334