Question: What American composer who died in 1978 was associated with an American Opera Company located in Jackson, Mississippi?

full_context: Document 1: Symphony No. 1 &quot;Afro-American&quot;: Symphony No. 1 in A-flat, "Afro-American" (1930) by William Grant Still was the first symphony written by an African American and performed for a United States audience by a leading orchestra. It was premiered in 1931 by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. It is a symphonic piece for full orchestra, including celeste, harp, and tenor banjo. It combines a fairly traditional symphonic form with blues progressions and rhythms that were characteristic of popular African-American music at the time. This combination expressed Still's integration of black culture into the classical forms. Still used quotes from four dialect poems by early 20th-century African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar as epigraphs for each symphonic movement.
Document 2: C. William Harwood: C. William Harwood (March 14, 1948, Richmond, Virginia - April 26, 1984, Little Rock, Arkansas) was an American conductor. Chiefly remembered for his work as an opera conductor, he notably conducted the Houston Grand Opera's groundbreaking 1977 national tour of George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess". He also conducted the world premieres of operas by Claude Debussy, Frederick Delius, Stephen Paulus, and George Rochberg.
Document 3: American Opera Projects: American Opera Projects (AOP) is a professional opera company based in Brooklyn, NY and is a member of OPERA America, the Fort Greene Association, the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance, and the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./NY). The company's primary mission is to develop and present new operatic and music theatre works and has gained a reputation for the "rarefied range" of the projects it fosters (Opera News, Dec 2008). AOP was founded in 1988 by Grethe Barrett Holby who served as Artistic Director of AOP from 1988 until 2001, at which point Charles Jarden became the company's Executive Director and Steven Osgood the company's Artistic Director. Steven Osgood left the post of Artistic Director in 2008 to pursue conducting full-time but remains the Artistic Director for AOP's "Composers & the Voice" program.
Document 4: Opera Ebony: Opera Ebony is an African-American opera company, which have performed Mozart in Harlem to African-American Heritage concerts in Iceland. Gershwin in Moscow to Duke Ellington in the Caribbean. Benjamin Matthews, Sister M. Elise Sisson, SBS (1897–1982), and Wayne Sanders founded Opera Ebony in 1973. It has served as a professional platform for thousands of American artists, administrators and technical staff helping them to refine their talent and perfect their operatic craft. In New York City, Opera Ebony has performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the World Trade Center, the Beacon Theatre, Langston Hughes Theater (Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture) and the Manhattan Center. Additionally, for ten years the company presented grand opera at Philadelphia's Academy of Music. Since 1988, Opera Ebony's repertoire has found Brazil, Russia, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Canada, Switzerland and Martinique. The company has also partnered with several major international orchestras, opera companies and music festivals including the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish National Opera, the Estonia Philharmonic and the Savolinna Music Festival.
Document 5: A Bayou Legend: A Bayou Legend is an American opera composed by William Grant Still, with a libretto by his wife and frequent collaborator, Verna Arvey.
Document 6: George Gershwin: George Jacob Gershwin ( ; September 26, 1898 July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924) and "An American in Paris" (1928) as well as the opera "Porgy and Bess" (1935).
Document 7: Troubled Island: Troubled Island is an American opera in three acts composed by William Grant Still, with a libretto begun by poet Langston Hughes and completed by Verna Arvey. She married the composer following their collaboration.
Document 8: Opera North (U.S.A.): Opera North is an American opera company based in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and is the region's oldest professional opera company. The company presents an annual summer season of three fully staged and orchestrated productions: a traditional opera, a piece of classical music theater, and an American opera. Opera North productions are staged at the Lebanon Opera House. Opera North is a member of Opera America.
Document 9: Mississippi Opera: The Mississippi Opera is an American opera company located in Jackson, Mississippi. Founded in 1945, the company presents an annual season of opera consisting of two fully staged opera productions and smaller concerts and workshops open to the public. The company's productions are performed at the Belhaven University Center for the Arts. Composer William Grant Still and soprano Leontyne Price both have associations with the company.
Document 10: Center for Contemporary Opera: The Center for Contemporary Opera (CCO) is a professional opera company based in New York City, and a member of OPERA America. The company focuses on producing and developing new opera and music theater works and reviving rarely seen American operas written after the second World War. The Center for Contemporary Opera has staged the premieres of many works written during the latter half of the twentieth century. Works are performed at all stages of development from readings to workshops to full productions on the professional stage. In line with its mission to promote an interest in new operatic and music-theater culture among the American public, the company presents panel discussions and colloquia, and publishes a bi-annual newsletter "Opera Today". Since 2004, the company has been a regular participant in the New York City Opera's annual festival, "Vox: Showcasing American Composers".
Document 11: American Opera Society: The American Opera Society (AOS) was a New York City based musical organization that presented concert and semi-staged performances of operas between 1951 and 1970. The company was highly influential in sparking and perpetuating the post World War II bel canto revival, particularly through a number of highly lauded productions of rarely heard works by Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini. The AOS also presented many operas to the American public for the first time, including the United States premieres of Benjamin Britten's "Billy Budd", Giuseppe Verdi's "Giovanna d'Arco", George Frideric Handel's "Hercules" and Hector Berlioz's "Les troyens" to name just a few.
Document 12: Verna Arvey: Verna Arvey (February 16, 1910 – November 22, 1987) was an American librettist, pianist and writer who is best known for her musical collaborations with her husband William Grant Still, a musician and composer.
Document 13: Opera America: Opera America, officially OPERA America, is a service organization promoting the creation, presentation, and enjoyment of opera in the US. Almost all professional opera companies and some semi-professional companies in the United States are members of the organization including such opera companies as the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Dallas Opera. Opera America also includes international affiliated opera companies such as the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo. Opera America also hosts businesses, educational institutions, libraries, foundations, guilds, and opera artists such as singers and composers. It is also the home of New York Children's Opera Studio. The organization was founded in 1970 and has been led by President and CEO Marc A. Scorca since 1990.
Document 14: Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters: The Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters (MIAL) is a privately funded foundation created to recognize annually the greatest accomplishments in art, music, literature, and photography among Mississippians. The idea was conceived by, among others, former Mississippi Governor William Winter, Dr. Cora Norman, Dr. Aubrey Lucas, and Dr. Noel Polk in 1978, and the first awards were given out in 1980. Nominations for these awards may be made only by registered members of the Institute. The winners are chosen by a jury of prominent academics in each of the seven fields: Fiction, Non-fiction, Visual Art, Concert Musical Composition, Popular Musical Composition, Photography, and Poetry. The ceremony is held in a different Mississippi city each year. Past winners have included Walker Percy, Ellen Douglas, Ellen Gilchrist, Richard Ford, Larry Brown, Rick Bass, Lewis Nordan, Beverly Lowry, Donna Tartt, Clifton Taulbert, Barry Hannah, Willie Morris, Leontyne Price, Cynthia Shearer, Stephen Ambrose, Steve Yarbrough, Tom Franklin, Brad Watson, Shelby Foote, Natasha Trethewey, Birney Imes, Maude Schyler Clay, William Grant Still, Morgan Freeman, Christopher Maurer, Wyatt Waters, Logan Skelton, and many others. Lifetime achievement awards have been presented to artists such as Gulf Coast painter and potter Walter Anderson, Jackson writer Eudora Welty, and the distinguished film actor from the Delta, Morgan Freeman.
Document 15: William Grant Still: William Grant Still (May 11, 1895 – December 3, 1978) was an American composer, who composed more than 150 works, including five symphonies and eight operas.
ground_truth: William Grant Still