Maestro Dr. Walter Franklin Anderson (May 12, 1915 - November 24, 2003) the grandson of enslaved people, was a classical pianist, organist, composer, jazz musician, community activist, and academician, was born in segregated Zanesville, Ohio. He was the sixth of nine children.
Information regarding his parents is not available. He began piano studies at age seven, and by 12, he was playing piano and organ professionally while still in elementary school. He was not a member of any of the school’s music ensembles, including the Glee Club or orchestra. He enrolled in the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and received a BSM in Piano and Organ. He continued his studies at Berkshire and the Cleveland Institute of Music.
He taught Applied Piano, Voice Pedagogy, and music theory at the Kentucky State College for Negroes. He married Dorothy Eleanor Ross (Cheeks) (1943-1945). They had two children.
He was appointed head of the music department at Antioch College, becoming the first African American to chair a department outside an HBCU. He was a Rosenwald Fellow in composition, where his variations on the Negro Spiritual, “Lord, Lord, Lord,” were performed by the Cleveland Orchestra. The conductor of the Orchestra commissioned him to write “Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra”. His composition, “D-Day Prayer Cantata,” was performed on a national CBS telecast. He received the equivalent of a Ph.D. as a fellow of the American Guild of Organists.
He was named director of music programs at the National Endowment for the Arts. He was the recipient of four honorary doctorates in music over his professional career. He retired from NEA in 1983. He became a presidential fellow at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies and a recipient of the Cleveland Arts Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts. The American Symphony Orchestra League recognized him as one of 50 people whose talents and efforts touched the lives of numerous musicians and orchestras. He was a member of the Advisory Council of the Institute of the Black World at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence
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