William Appling

William Thomas Appling (November 3, 1932 - August 29, 2008) was a renowned American conductor, pianist, educator and arranger.

As a conductor he led the William Appling Singers & Orchestra for almost twenty-five years and conducted other choirs and musical organizations, premiering new works by many American composers.

As a pianist he played under the batons of conductors including Robert Shaw, Louis Lane, and Darius Milhaud, and he was the first African American to record the complete piano music of Scott Joplin.

As an educator he taught at American schools and universities including Vassar College, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Music and Western Reserve Academy.

He made a number of recordings as both conductor and pianist, and his choral arrangements have been performed and recorded by such prominent ensembles as Chanticleer, Cantus and Dale Warland Singers.

Appling was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, the youngest in a family of four boys and three girls.

Neither his father, Bradford Appling, nor his mother, Gertrude Wynn Appling, were musicians, though they encouraged him to pursue his talent.

He attended Cleveland's John Adams High School and his formal education was completed upon graduating with both a BA and MA from Case Western Reserve University.

His preparation included piano study with Elizabeth Lambright, Frances Bolton Kortheuer, Egbert Fischer, and Leonard Shure, and organ study with Edwin Arthur Kraft.

William Appling enjoyed an active career as a concert pianist, giving many recitals in the Cleveland area during the 1950s and '60s.

Early in his career, in 1952, he appeared as accompanist with the legendary composer and musician W. C. Handy in a program sponsored by the National Association of Negro Musicians.

During his years in the Cleveland area, Appling was Director of the Choral Club of Glenville High School from 1955 to 1965.

On April 1, 1962, with Robert Shaw conducting the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall, Appling was piano soloist in George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

On August 11, 1962, he performed Rhapsody in Blue in a Pops Concert in Public Auditorium with Louis Lane conducting the Cleveland Orchestra.

Appling also appeared as part of the Brooklyn Museum Concerts Program series in January, 1963, and in solo recital at The Town Hall, New York City, in April, 1964.

Under his leadership the choir became well known throughout Ohio and beyond, accepting invitations to sing at the Hollywood Bowl, the 1964 New York World's Fair and at educators' meetings in Ohio and Indianapolis.

Appling also served as the Choral Director of the Case Men's Glee Club from 1964 to 1979, West Shore Chorale from 1970 to 1981, the University Circle Singers at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and was a guest conductor and prepared choruses for the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra from 1966 to 1968.

He also served as guest director of choral conferences throughout Ohio and the United States.

In 1965, the Cleveland Board of Education presented the Choral Club in a sold-out concert at Severance Hall.

In 1965, Appling received the first Kulas Foundation Fellowship Award for Choral Conducting with the Cleveland Orchestra, in which capacity he served as assistant to Robert Shaw, then conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus.

He also played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 under the baton of Hyman Schandler and the Cleveland Women's Orchestra in 1965.

Appling also appeared at the Aspen Music Festival under Darius Milhaud and in duo recital with tenor Seth McCoy and his then wife, soprano Anita Appling.

In 1979, Appling founded the William Appling Singers & Orchestra (WASO), a professional ensemble performing primarily choral works of all periods and styles.

The group's premiere performance was at the Cleveland Institute of Music on March 9, 1980, presenting an all-Mozart program.

WASO premiered the works of many contemporary American composers, including those by Richard Hundley, Donald Erb, and Richard Edward Wilson.

In Ohio, WASO appeared in concert at Severance Hall, Blossom Music Center, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and numerous church concerts.

The group was noted for its performances of J.S. Bach's Mass in B minor and during the holiday seasons their presentation of Handel's Messiah became a welcome tradition in the Cleveland area.

Appling and WASO also collaborated on projects with the prominent musician, sociologist and musicologist Zelma Watson George in community outreach programs such as A Joyful Noise, which was presented at Cleveland's legendary Karamu House and Mount Zion Congregational Church.

Appling was music director and conductor of the premiere of Leslie Adams's opera, Blake, in a 70-minute concert version at the Cleveland Play House in June, 1985.

On February 22, 1990, Appling was guest artist for A Night to Remember, sponsored by the University of Akron in conjunction with the university's Black Cultural Center to recognize the contributions of Blacks to the arts.

The program included excerpts from Porgy and Bess and a tribute to the late choreographer Alvin Ailey.

After moving to New York in 1990 to become Director of Choral Activities at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, Appling re-established WASO on the east coast where the ensemble performed throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

From 1991 to 1995, Appling and WASO were associated with the Bard Music Festival, founded by Leon Botstein.

In 1991, he prepared the chorus for the Festival's performance of Felix Mendelssohn's choral symphony Lobgesang.

The Bard Festival focused on composer Richard Strauss in 1992, and about the festival critic Edward Said wrote in The Nation magazine, "For me, there was one particularly jolting work that stood out over all the others. Performed with rapt concentration by the William Appling Singers under Appling, a remarkable choral conductor, it was heard for the first time in the United States: Strauss's Deutsche Motette, Op. 62, composed in 1913, revised in 1943."

In 1993, he prepared the chorus in performances that were part of the Antonín Dvořák festival in New York City.

1994's Bard Festival was devoted to Robert Schumann, and in 1995, Appling and WASO were part of the Bard Music Festival's Rediscoveries - Béla Bartók and His World.

On October 7, 1996, WASO was the only professional musical organization in the United States to present a concert celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Billings, America's first great native-born composer at Christ & Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church in New York City.

During the 2000s, while working on his Scott Joplin project, Appling performed several times at venues in New York City and Massachusetts.

He performed a program of Scott Joplin on March 16, 2004, at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Manhattan when the church's soup kitchen served its 5 millionth meal.