Sam Raphling

Born 1910 in Fort Worth, Texas, to parents David and Helen (Raphalovich), Jewish immigrants from Latvia or Lithuania. Formative interactions as a child with African American people and culture in Texas. Moved with family to Chicago about 1916. Chicago College of Music. Pupil of Rudolph Ganz, who encouraged students to play Debussy rather than exercises... Prolific composer in all areas, including several operas, 6 symphonies and 100 songs to poems of Langston Hughes alone. Arranged Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" for solo piano. Well published, little recorded. Friend of Hughes, and Rawn Spearman who sang some of the songs. (Spearman's PhD at Columbia U. was written about Hughes' poems set to music). Raphling passed away in 1988 in Manhattan.