Earl Louis Stewart, DMA | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | August 11, 1950 Baton Rouge, Louisiana |
| Alma mater | The University of Texas at Austin |
| Occupations |
|
| Awards | Global Music Awards (2018, 2022) |
| Website | Official Site |
Dr. Earl Louis Stewart (born August 11, 1950) is an author, essayist, poet, Professor Emeritus of The College of Creative Studies and the Black Studies department at the University of California Santa Barbara.,[1] and an American composer of intellectual jazz as represented by the American Composer's Alliance.[2] In the past fifty years, Stewart has written several hundred compositions for chamber ensembles, chamber orchestras, symphony orchestras, quartets, soloists, and choir.
Stewart's career began at age fourteen when writing head arrangements with pick-up bands headlined by visiting black-soul artists from across the United States, and performing as a trumpeter with notables like Percy Sledge, Syl Johnson, King Floyd, Garland Green amongst others traveling on the Chitlin' Circuit.[3]
Following the development of his experience as a jazz musician, Stewart attended Southern University Baton Rouge's Jazz Institute, studying jazz composition under Alvin Batiste, an American jazz clarinetist, as preparation for him to earn his doctorate at the University of Texas in Austin. Stewart studied Western-European-classical-music composition with composer Karl Korte, orchestrator and author Kent Kennan, ethnomusicologist Gerard Béhague, and Pulitzer-Prize-winning composer Joseph Schwantner.[4]
Stewart's compositions have been performed at venues worldwide, such as the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall[5] and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music in New York; Heineken Jazz Festival in Tel Aviv, Israel; Saenger Theatre in Mobile, Alabama; the Sixth Annual Biennial International and Symposium Festival on New Intercultural Music at the University of London.[6] Notables who have performed select pieces of Stewart's compositions include saxophonist Cannonball Adderly, Alvin Batiste,[4] actor Moses Gunn, choreographer Chuck Davis, and mezzo-soprano Barbara Conrad.[7][8]
Stewart has authored three books on music, including African American Music: An Introduction, a comprehensive study of African American music spanning from the Civil War to the present. He has also written numerous articles examining African-American music's aesthetic and theoretical significance. Stewart's publications include "African-American Music" in the Encyclopedia of Multiculturalism "Towards an Aesthetic of Black Musical Expression" in the Journal of Aesthetic Education, "Pan-African Classicism and Scott Joplin" in the Texas Journal, "Otis Redding" in Popular Musicians, and "Coleridge-Taylor: Concatenationalism and Essentialism in an Anglo-African Composer" in the American Philosophical Association Newsletter of Philosophy and the Black Experience.[5]
In December 2003, Stewart contracted Guillain–Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disease, of which the symptoms caused him to end his career as a conductor.[9]
Steal Away (1991)[17]
Al-Inkishafi: An Oratorio (1984)[3]
Deep River (December 1987)[3]
Concerto: An Appropriate Title (1975)[3]
Symphony No. 4: Juneteenth (2024).[6]
Amina (1990)[17]
American Independence Suite (1992)[17]
Nakupenda (1999)[3]
Tenderly (2002)[3]