question: Which American composer was married to Verna Arvey?
answer: William Grant Still
context: Title: A Bayou Legend
  Passage: A Bayou Legend is an American opera composed by William Grant Still, with a libretto by his wife and frequent collaborator, Verna Arvey.
  Title: Jay Cocks
  Passage: John C. "Jay" Cocks, Jr. (born January 12, 1944) is an American film critic and screenwriter.  He is a graduate of Kenyon College.  He was a critic for "Time", "Newsweek", and "Rolling Stone", among other magazines, before shifting to screenplay writing.  He is married to actress Verna Bloom.
  Title: Adel Heinrich
  Passage: Adel Verna Heinrich (born July 20, 1926) is an American composer, organist, and former university teacher.  She taught music at Colby College until her retirement in 1988.
  Title: Stephen J. Lawrence
  Passage: Stephen J. Lawrence (a.k.a. Stephen Lawrence) is an American composer, living and working in New York City.  He has composed more than 300 songs and scores for "Sesame Street", resulting in three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition; composed the title song and four others for Marlo Thomas's "Free to Be... You and Me", the landmark million-selling record, book and Emmy Award- and Peabody Award-winning ABC television special; composed the million-selling Gold Record "You Take My Breath Away"; scored the Robert De Niro movie "Bang the Drum Slowly" and the cult horror classic "Alice, Sweet Alice", which won the music award at the Paris International Festival of Fantasy and Science Fiction; composed score for "One Summer Love", 1976, a.k.a. "Dragonfly", composed the songs and score for the 1989 live-action movie musical "Red Riding Hood" starring Isabella Rossellini and Craig T. Nelson, lyrics by Michael Korie; composed songs for the live-action movie musical "The Emperor's New Clothes", starring Sid Caesar and Robert Morse; composed songs and score for "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", an HBO animated musical starring Carol Burnett, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick.  He has a B.A. in music from Hofstra University.  Married Christine Jones 1984.  Daughter, Hannah Lawrence, born 1986.  Married Cathy Schwartzman, 2002.  Music Director, Temple Sinai, Stamford Ct, 2002 to 2012.
  Title: Barbara Kolb
  Passage: Barbara Kolb (b. Hartford, Connecticut, February 10, 1939) is an American composer.  Her music uses sound masses and often creates vertical structures through simultaneous rhythmic or melodic units (motifs or figures).  Barbara's musical styling can be identified by her use of colorful textures, impressionistic touch, and atonal vocabulary, with influences stemming from literary and visual arts.  She was the first American woman composer to win the Rome Prize.  She received her B.M. (cum laude, 1961) and M.M. degrees (1964) from the Hartt College of Music (now The Hartt School) at the University of Hartford, and studied with Arnold Franchetti, Lukas Foss and Gunther Schuller.  Following her various degrees, Kolb relocated to Vienna, Austria from 1966-1967 with a Fulbright Fellowship grant.  She was the first female American composer to win the Rome Prize [Prix de Rome], in 1969.  From 1979 - 1982, Kolb served as the artistic director of contemporary music at the Third Street Music School Settlement, where she presented the "Music New to New York" concert series.  Additionally, she has had a professional teaching career teaching at Rhode Island College and Eastman School of Music as a visiting professor in Composition.  A selection of Barbara's compositions were featured at the Kennedy Center, performed by the "Theatre Chamber Players" as part of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.  However, Kolb was not only known as a composer; but she was also proficient at the Eb clarinet.
  Title: William Grant Still
  Passage: 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.
  Title: Troubled Island
  Passage: 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.
  Title: American Composer Series
  Passage: The American Composer Series is an ongoing performance series in the cabaret revue format, paying tribute to the greatest composers of popular American music on the American scene, particularly those composers associated with Tin Pan Alley.  Launched by musical director Earl Wentz in 2000 with a tribute to Ray Henderson (composer of mega-hits “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” “Bye Bye Blackbird,” “Button Up Your Overcoat,” “The Birth of the Blues” and others) titled "It’s the Cherries", the series has continued to add new shows to its repertoire at the rate of one or two per year.  As of 2009, the American Composer Series had created some 15 original revue tributes, many of them returning for multiple runs over the years.
  Title: Transformations (opera)
  Passage: Transformations is a chamber opera in two acts by the American composer Conrad Susa with a libretto of ten poems by Anne Sexton from her 1971 book "Transformations", a collection of confessional poetry based on stories by the Brothers Grimm.  Commissioned by Minnesota Opera, the work, which is described by its composer as "An Entertainment in 2 Acts", had its world premiere on 5 May 1973 at the Cedar Village Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Anne Sexton, who had worked closely with Susa on the libretto, was in the audience.  It went on to become one of the most frequently performed operas by an American composer with its chamber opera format of eight singers and an instrumental ensemble of eight musicians making it particularly popular with smaller opera companies and conservatories.  The 2006 revival production of "Transformations" at the Wexford Opera Festival won the "Irish Times" Theatre Award for Best Opera Production.
  Title: Verna Arvey
  Passage: 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.
citations: A Bayou Legend William Grant Still