Edward Boatner
Edward Hammond Boatner was an American composer who wrote many popular concert arrangements of Negro spirituals.Biography
Boatner was educated at Western University in Quindaro, Kansas, Boston Conservatory and received a Bachelor of Music from the Chicago Music College. 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 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.Music
Notable arrangements
