A Spiritual Fantasy highlights African American composers who had a woven connection with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and William Grant Still: Clarence Cameron White was born five years after Coleridge-Taylor and later studied with him; Florence Price was born six years before Grant Still and grew up as neighbors in Arkansas; Frederick Tillis was born the same year audiences first heard Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony.
All of the composers were greatly influenced by a truly unique expression of African American strength, resilience, and community: the Negro Spiritual. A Spiritual Fantasy explores these themes in music, knowing the same sense of strength, resilience, and community were pivotal forces that inspired civil rights activist Octavius Catto.
