Earl Lewis Stewart

1950 -

About

Earl Louis Stewart is a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Black Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. He received his BS in Secondary Education from Southern University, Baton Rouge, studying under Walter Craig and the late Alvin Batiste in it Jazz Institute. He then received his MM and DMA in Composition from The University of Texas at Austin, studying with Karl Korte, Joseph Schwantner, and world-renowned author of Counterpoint (the late) Kent Kennan.

For the past 40 years, he has been committed to the applications of advanced counterpoint in jazz and jazz derived styles. Dr. Stewart proclaims the art of counterpoint is the combinations of melodies into a higher unit, which creates the harmony. "Europeans were masters of the contrapuntal technique, and it was foundational in the beginnings of their musical developments. The music was principally polyphonic; in fact, the rhythmic composites of African-derived music enjoyed throughout the world is fundamentally polyphonic. By combining rhythm and melody in certain ways in the vernacular, one finds that baroque music is compatible." Understanding this principle has resulted in Dr. Stewart's creation of inumerous jazz fugues, inventions, and other contrapuntal creations in the style of African and African-derived music.

Dr. Stewart is the author of African American Music: An Introduction, a musicological survey of African American music from the Civil War to the present. He has published articles on the aesthetic and theoretical significance of African American music – several of which were co-authored with Dr. Jane Duran. A sampling includes "Towards an Aesthetic of Black Musical Expression," Journal of Aesthetic Education; "Scott Joplin and the Quest for Identity,"Journal of Aesthetic Education; "Coleridge-Taylor: Concatenationalism and Essentialism in an Anglo-African Composer," American Philosophical Association Newsletter of Philosophy and the Black Experience.

Related Information

https://composers.com/collections/earl-louis-stewart

Works by Earl Lewis Stewart