Adolphus Hailstork Collection
Biography
Collection Scope and Contents
Key to Finding Aids Terms / Scores and Parts: Alphabetical List / Scores and Parts: Chronological List / Biographical and Bibliographical Material / Correspondence / DCR Exhibition Material / Photographs / Programs, Program Notes, etc. / Reviews, Publicity and Newspaper Articles / Sketches and Sketchbooks / Supplemental Material / Introduction
BIOGRAPHY
Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III was born April 17, 1941 in Rochester, New York. Most of his childhood was spent in Albany, where he studied the violin, piano, organ, and singing. While attending Albany High School he began to conduct a boys' choral group and to compose music. In 1963 he received a bachelor's degree in music theory from Howard University, where he studied with Mark Fax. That summer, through a Lucy Moten Travel Fellowship, he was able to study abroad at the American Institute at Fountainebleau with Nadia Boulanger. He earned a second bachelor's degree and, in 1966, a master's degree in composition from the Manhattan School of Music. There he studied under David Diamond and with Vittorio Giannini, Ludmila Ulehla, and Nicholas Flagello. He earned a doctorate in 1971 in composition from Michigan State University, where he was a student of H. Owen Reed.
Dr. Hailstork began his teaching career at Ohio's Youngstown State University. For more than twenty years he was a professor of music and Composer-in-Residence at Virginia's Norfolk State University. Currently he is a professor of music and Composer-in-Residence at Old Dominion University. Additionally, he was granted a Fullbright Fellowship in 1987 and, in 1992, was named a Laureate in Music of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Hailstork has written numerous works for chorus, solo voice, various chamber ensembles, band, and orchestra. Many of his pieces have won awards, and many have been commissioned. In 1971 Mourn not the Dead received the Ernest Bloch Award for choral composition. Out of the Depths won the 1977 Belwin-Mills Max Winkler Award, presented by the Band Directors National Association. In 1983 American Guernica was awarded first prize in a national contest sponsored by the Virginia College Band Directors. The chamber work, Consort Piece, was awarded First Prize by the University of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music in 1995.
In 1990 Dr. Hailstork was commissioned by a consortium of five orchestras for a piano concerto that was premiered by Leon Bates in 1992. He also was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music to write Festival Music for the Baltimore Symphony. Conductors such as James de Priest, Daniel Barenboim and Kurt Masur have directed major orchestras (Philadelphia, Chicago and New York) in presenting Hailstork's works. In 1999 two of his commissioned pieces were premiered: Symphony No. 2, commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Joshua's Boots, commissioned by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the Kansas City Lyric Opera.
On May 1, 2002 the Virginia Arts Festival presented an evening of Adolphus Hailstork's chamber music. The performance included the world premiere of Trio for Viola Flute and Harp (commissioned by the Virginia Chamber Players) and String Quartet, as well as the Virginia premiere of Two Romances. Arabesques (1991) and Sanctum (1997), both composed for members of the Virginia Chamber Players, were also part of the program.
The Adolphus Hailstork Collection is on deposit in the special collections area of the Diehn Composers Room. It spans some of his earliest works (Theory 2a Assignment, written in 1960 when he was an eighteen year old freshman at Howard University) through works composed in 2002. The collection also includes materials relating to the presentations of his work and some biographical material.