Born in Rochester, New York, Hailstork studied at Howard University, the Manhattan School of Music, the American Institute at Fontainebleau, and Michigan State University. His teachers were H. Owen Reed, Vittorio Giannini, David Diamond, and Nadia Boulanger. He is currently Professor of Music and Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

An American Port of Call was written for the Virginia Symphony Orchestra in 1985. Hailstork describes the work as “a concert overture, in sonata-allegro form (which) captures the strident (and occasionally tender and even mysterious) energy of a busy American port city. The great port of Norfolk, Virginia, where I live, was the direct inspiration.”

~ Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2022.