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Edward Boatner

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Name
  
Edward Boatner

Role
  
Composer

Children
  
Sonny Stitt


Edward Boatner wwwhymnaryorgfileshymnarypersonBoatnerEjpg

Died
  
1981, New York, United States

Education
  
Western University, Boston Conservatory

Similar People
  
Sonny Stitt, Harry Burleigh, Hall Johnson, Margaret Bonds, Roland Hayes

oh what a beautiful city edward boatner


Edward Hammond Boatner (1898–1981) was an African-American composer who wrote many popular concert arrangements of Negro spirituals.

Contents

Didn t my lord deliver daniel negro spiritual edward boatner


Biography

Boatner was educated at Western University in Quindaro, Kansas, Boston Conservatory and received a Bachelor of Music from the Chicago Music College (Now the College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University). He also studied music privately. He began as a Concert singer with the encouragement and assistance of Roland Hayes — who performed many of Boatner's works on his concert programs—and choral director R. Nathaniel Dett. He also sang leading roles with the National Negro Opera Company. For the National Baptist Convention, he served as the director of music from 1925 to 1931. Boatner was a professor for Samuel Huston College (now Huston-Tillotson University) and Wiley College in Marshall, TX. He then settled in New York conducting a studio and directed community and church choirs. This allowed him to concentrate more on composing.

Boatner was the natural father of the great sax player Sonny Stitt, but the boy - named Edward Boatner, Jr. - was given up for adoption early on to the Stitt family, growing up in Saginaw, Michigan.

Notable arrangements

  • Oh, What a Beautiful City
  • Le Us Break Bread Together
  • Soon I Will Be Done
  • Trampling
  • I want Jesus to walk with me, for Marian Anderson
  • Notable compositions

  • Freedom Suite for chorus, narrator, and orchestra
  • The Man from Nazareth, a "spiritual musical"
  • Julius Sees Her, a musical comedy
  • References

    Edward Boatner Wikipedia