The "Music and the Arts: Still Our Only Future" conference will commemorate three significant historical and musical events in American music:
The 80th ANNIVERSARY of Still’s internationally-renowned work and pioneering composition, “The Afro-American Symphony” (composed in 1929).
The 60th ANNIVERSARY of the premiere of William Grant Still’s grand opera, Troubled Island (1949).
And the upcoming 75th ANNIVERSARY (2011) of William Grant Still’s triumphant appearance on the Hollywood Bowl’s stage as the first African-American to conduct a major American orchestra (1936).
