Ulysses Kay

about

Ulysses Simpson Kay (January 7, 1917, Tucson, Arizona–May 20, 1995, Englewood, New Jersey) was an African-American composer. His music is mostly neoclassical in style. Ulysses Kay, the nephew of the classic jazz musician King Oliver, studied piano, violin and saxophone. Kay attended the University of Arizona where he was encouraged by the African-American composer William Grant Still. He went for graduate work to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and there worked under Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers. Ulysses Kay met the eminent neoclassical composer Paul Hindemith in the summer of 1941 at the Berkshire Music Center and followed Hindemith to Yale for a formative year of study from 1941 to 1942. After a stint as a musician in the Navy during the World War II, Ulysses Kay studied at Columbia University under Otto Luening with the assistance of a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund. In addition to this prize, Kay received a series of five other significant awards in the year following his discharge from the Navy including the Alice M. Ditson Fellowship, a grant from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an award from the American Composers and American Broadcasting Company, a $500 award from the third annual George Gershwin Memorial Contest for "A Short Overture," and a $700 award from the American Composers Alliance for his "Suite for Orchestra." Following this successful period, he lived and studied further in Rome from 1949 to 1953 thanks to a Fulb

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top songs

albums

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KEY: Six Dances for String Orchestra

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Works For Chamber Orchestra

African Heritage Symphonic Series, Vol. 2

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The Contemporary Composer In The U.S.A.

Kay: Sinfonia in E; Binkerd: Symphony No. 2

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Inflorescence - Music for Solo Flute

Dawson & Kay: Orchestral Works

Kete - Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora

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Still, W.G.: From the Black Belt / Ives, C.: Violin Sonata No. 4 / Coolidge, P.S.: New England Autumn (Under an American Sky)

The Great American Composers

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Kay: Works for Chamber Orchestra

Ulysses Kay: Works for Chamber Orchestra

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