Earl Louis Stewart, DMA

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Earl Louis Stewart, DMA
Born	(1950-08-11) August 11, 1950 Baton Rouge, Louisiana
🎓 Alma mater	Southern University Baton Rouge
💼 Occupation	American Composer musicologist author professor emeritus
🏅 Awards	Golden Music Awards (2018, 2022)
🌐 Website	Official Site

Dr. Earl Louis Stewart (born August 11, 1950) is an author, essayist, poet, Professor Emeritus of the Black Studies department at the University of California Santa Barbara, and an American composer of intellectual jazz. In the past fifty years, Stewart has written several hundred compositions for chamber ensembles, chamber orchestras, symphony orchestras, quartets, soloists, and choir.

In December 2003, Stewart experienced a life-altering and near-fatal event when he contracted Guillain–Barré syndrome, a debilitating neurological disorder. The lingering effects of the syndrome have left him with residual paralysis, thereby ending his career as a conductor.

Stewart continues to create compositions from his home in Goleta, California, winning two Global Music Awards. He currently resides with his wife of twenty-one years, Annell.

Early life

Earl Louis Stewart was born on August 11, 1950, into a family of eight, and raised in the inner city of South Baton Rouge. At the young age of six, Stewart's musical interests were piqued upon his discovery of the piano. Coming from a musical family, Stewart was encouraged to cultivate his musical talents by creating melodies on the family's pianola. By Stewart's twelfth birthday, he had already become a locally recognized piano player, soon to expand his musical interests when he began playing the trumpet, winning him numerous honors and awards. From the age of fourteen, while still in high school, Stewart’s musical ear and his ability to write head arrangements joined him with pick-up bands headlined by visiting black-soul artists from across the United States, performing with legends like Percy Sledge, Syl Johnson, King Floyd, Garland Green and other artists traveling on the Chitlin' Circuit.

At the age of eighteen, Stewart continued exploring his musical passions, transitioning from the stage into academia, attending Southern University Baton Rouge’s Jazz Institute to study jazz composition under the guidance of jazz great Alvin Batiste. In 1973, after graduating with a B.A. in Music Education, Stewart moved to Texas, attending graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. There, he 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. With a Travel/Study Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Stewart was allowed to continue his compositional studies in New York with William Fischer.

Career

In 1981, Earl Stewart, now a Doctor of Musical Arts, began lecturing at the University of Texas at Austin, teaching courses on African-American music at the African and Afro-American Studies Research Center. During this time, Dr. Stewart had begun the oratorio production of his doctoral composition, Al-Inkishafi, a choral-symphonic composition inspired by an early nineteenth-century East African (Kiswahili) poem. Al-Inkishafi (Identity 14) (The Soul's Awakening) premiered on April 21, 1984, featuring the Austin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maestro Sung Kwak, Mezzo-Soprano Barbara Conrad, renowned for her performances at the Metropolitan Opera, choreographer of African dance, Chuck Davis, and the Southern University Choir from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Actor Moses Gunn delivered the English narration, and John "Mtembezi" Inniss was the Kiswahili narrator.

Following the premier of Al-Inkishafi, Stewart's compositional career continued to attract the attention of notable performers and ensembles. Performances of soloists Carolyn Sebron and jazz artists like Cannonball Adderley, Alvin Batiste, and Kent Jordan to name a few, have complemented the technical jazz structure and classical form of Stewart's compositions. Diverse groups, including the Southern University Chorus, the Southern University Jazz Orchestra, the Austin Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Orchestra and Choral, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ghana, the National Academy of Music Chorus of Wineba, the Scott Joplin Orchestra of Houston, the University of California Jazz Orchestra, the Mobile Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra have showcased his music.

Stewart's compositions have been performed at venues worldwide, such as the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall 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; the University of New Orleans Performing Arts Center; The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival; Louisiana's oldest HBCU, Dillard University; and Milsaps College in Jackson, MS.

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 contributed numerous articles examining African American music's aesthetic and theoretical significance. Noteworthy 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.

Compositional style

Stewart's compositional style is built on the cultural foundation of the urban-folk traditions of African-American music dating back to the emancipation of slaves: including spirituals, ragtime, blues, New Orleans jazz, boogie-woogie, swing, be-bop, post-bop, avant-garde jazz, soul, funk, and Neo-soul music. Additionally, Stewart incorporates the rhythmic counterpoint of African and African-derived music styles with Western classical music. His late styles show a very strong interest in baroque contrapuntal resources, which has resulted in the expansion of, and in some cases the creation of, new forms such as double, triple, quadruple, and quintuple jazz fugues, jazz rounds, canonic swings and double and triple canonic swings.

Select compositions

Chamber Ensemble

• Rhythm Sonata No. 1-13 (2006-2021) for flute, drum set, harp, and strings
• Baching the Blues (2007) for flute and harp
• Bop'n the Rag Blues (2022) for flute and piano
• Blues Invention (2007) for flute and harp
• Inventions Sacred and Profane (2007) for vibraphone and violoncello
• Rag and Fugue (2003) for violin, violoncello, and double bass
• Three Rags for Flute and Piano (2018) for flute and piano

Chamber Orchestra

• The Portal (2016)
• Elton's Nocturne (2000)
• Corsica (2007)
• Corsica (2007)
• Nakupenda - Identity 19.2 (1989)
• Undulations (1986)
• Vicissitudes of Life (2007)
• Amazing Grace (1997)
• Katrina Lament - Identity 113 (2006) on ACA
• Katrina Lament - Identity 113b (2006)
• Elegy for Mr. Alvin Batiste (2007)
• Canonic Swings Vol 1-7 (2020-2023)
• Budding Rose Rag (2020)
• Dark Beauty (2007)
• Journey to the Seat of the Master (1999)
• The Beautiful Pearl Ragtime (2009)
• Friends Forever (2009)
• The Dawning of Spring (1990)
• Three Rag Offerings (2008)
• Trip of Love Fantasy (1988)
• Jazz Fugue for Flute and Strings (1989)
• Undulations (1986)

Symphony Orchestra

• Glimpses (1981)
• Diminished Fantasy (2011)
• Trip of Love (1988)
• Swing for Violin & Orchestra (2009)
• Double Fugue on a Theme by Duke Ellington (2021)
• Vernacular Variations (1998)
• Blues Prelude and Fugue (2020)

Jazz Symphony

• Symphony
  • No. 1 F minor
  • No. 2 E minor
  • No. 3 D minor
  • No. 4: Juneteenth
  • No. 5 Homage to Swing
  • N0. 6 Ragtimes Vol I&II
  • No. 8 Echoes from a Simpler Time
  • No. 9 Five Musicals Prayers
  • No. 15 New Beginning
  • Jazz Passacaglia (2021)

Piano Works

• Afro-Inventions for Piano: Volume I, II (1993)
• Song for Annell - A Blues Fantasy (1982) for piano on YouTube
• Tangulizi Kabala Ya Nisha Kuu: Preludes before dissertations (1981)
• Afro Fugues in 3 Parts (2012)
• Classic Rags Book 1 (2003)

Piano Rags

• 4 Canonic Rags
• Beauty in Darkness Rag

Oratorio / Cantata

• Al-Inkishafi (1984)
• Chrismons-Jazz Cantata

Chorus

Deep River (Ricercare) (2008) for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass chorus

Symphonic Poem

• Genesis - Identity 175 (2022) for orchestra, SATB choir, and narrator

Awards

• The Eccles Centre for American Studies, British Library, London, England, Travel Grant Award, November 2009.
• UCSB Academic Senate, Travel Grant Award, November 2009.
• Outstanding Faculty Member, nominated by residence hall students of UCSB; May 1997.
• Certificate for "Celebration of Black Scholarship in New England," in recognition of distinguished scholastic achievement; sponsored by the University of Massachusetts, Boston, 1992.

• Fulbright Scholarship as senior lecturer with the National Commission on Culture and the W.E.B. Du Bois Centre for Pan African Culture, Ghana, West Africa, 1991-1992.
• Two-month extension of the Fulbright Fellowship, 1992.
• Composition Grant by “Meet the Composer,” 1990.
• Global Music Awards 2018 Gold Medal winner for Homage to Swing - Composer Counterpoint Classical/Jazz - 2022 Silver Medal winner for Symphony #2 in E Minor (Identity 54)

Bibliography

Books

• African American Music:  An Introduction, New York:  Cengage Learning (formerly Schirmer Books; London:  Prentice Hall International), 1998. ISBN 10: 0028602943  |  ISBN 13: 9780028602943

• The Art of Soul Music: 1960-1980. A Musicological Perspective (Preliminary Edition) Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, IA, 2012. ISBN 978-0-7575-9999-6

• Vernacular Harmony: San Diego, CA:  University Readers, an imprint of Cognella, 2010 ISBN 978-1-60927-783-3

• Eclectic Fables: Seven Tales from the Black Experience, Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse (formerly known as 1st Books Library, San Bernardino, CA), 2002 ISBN 978-1-40331-940-1

Articles

• “Pan-African Classicism and Scott Joplin,” Texas Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp 12-15, Fall/Winter 1991. Print.
• “The Black Rhythmic Conception,” Uhuru, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp 68 -69, Ghana, West Africa 1992. Print.
• “A Case For The NSO,” Uhuru,  Vol. 5, No. 6, pp 43-45, Ghana, West Africa 1993. Print.
• “African-American Music,” Encyclopedia of Multiculturalism, pp 1199-1203, Salem Press, Pasadena, California 1993. Print.

• “Celebrating Black History Month,” Progressions (newsletter), pp 1-2, Berklee College of Music, Winter 1993. Print.

• “From the Lone Star to the Black Star,” Berklee Today: A Forum for Contemporary Music and Musicians, pp 8, Berklee College of Music, Spring 1993. Print.
• Duran, Jane and Earl Stewart, “Toward an Aesthetic of Black Musical Expression,” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 31, No. 1, University of Illinois, Spring 1997. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8510(199721)31%3A1%3C73%3ATAAOBM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P
• Duran, Jane and Earl Stewart. “Form and Nigrecence in African and Afro-North American Arts,” Art & Academe, Vol. 9, No. 1, Visual Arts Press, Summer 1997. Print.
• “Otis Redding,” Popular Musicians, pp 890-892, Salem Press, Inc., April 1999. Print.
• Stewart, Earl and Jane Duran. “Black Essentialism:  The Art of Jazz Rap,” Philosophy of Music Education Review," Volume 7, No. 1, Spring 1999. Print. www.iupress.indiana.edu/journals/pmer/pmetoc7.html

• Stewart, Earl and Jane Duran. “Coleridge-Taylor:  Concatenationism and Essentialism in an Anglo-African Composer,” American Philosophical Association Newsletter, Vol. 99, No. 1, Fall 1999.   www.apa.udel.edu/apa/publications/newsletters/v99n1/blackexperience/article-stewart.asp

• Harris, Leonard, editor, Jane Duran, and Earl Stewart, contributors. The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke:  A Reader on Value Theory, Aesthetics, Community, Culture, Race, and Education, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999.  www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtmlcommand=Search&db=%5EDB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0847688089&thepassedurl=%5Bthepassedurl%5D

• Duran, Jane and Earl Stewart. “Scott Joplin and the Quest for Identity,” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 94-99, Summer 2007. Print.

Discography

CD

From the Heart: The Music of Earl Louis Stewart (2007)

• Eclectic String Studio Orchestra, Molly Buzick, conductor
  • Inkishafi Records and Publishing: CD Baby / Inkishafi 4004

DVD

• Eclectic Musings: 3rd Annual Nakupenda Valentine's Concert (2006)
  • Piano Compositions, Poetry, and Short Stories, Earl Stewart, music director
  • Regents of the University of California UCTV 4315
• Bach in the Hood: 4th Annual Nakupenda Concert (2008)
  • Eclectic String Studio Orchestra, Earl Stewart, composer
  • UC Santa Barbara Department of Music, Center for Black Studies, College of Creative Studies
  • Regents of the University of California UCTV 15115

External Links

• Official Site

• American Composers Alliance
• Amazing Grace Documentary IMDb
  

Summary

Description	English: Earl Louis Stewart, circa 1984, University of Texas at Austin, for Al-Inkishafi press.
Source	Own work
Date	2023-07-17
Author	Daddy4Nola2017
Permission (Reusing this file)	See below.

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