Donald Walbridge Shirley (January 29, 1927 – April 6, 2013) was an American classical and jazz pianist and composer.

He wrote organ symphonies, piano concerti, a cello concerto, three string quartets, a one-act opera, works for organ, piano and violin, a symphonic poem based on the 1939 novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, and a set of "Variations" on the 1858 opera Orpheus in the Underworld.

[12] In 1949, he received an invitation from the Haitian government to play at the Exposition Internationale du Bi-Centenaire de Port-au-Prince, followed by a request from President Estimé and Archbishop Joseph-Marie Le Gouaze for a repeat performance the next week.

[1][2] Discouraged by the lack of opportunities for black classical musicians, Shirley abandoned the piano as a career for a time.

He performed in New York City at Basin Street East, where Duke Ellington heard him and they started a friendship.

For his initial tour, in 1962,[19] he hired New York nightclub bouncer Tony "Lip" Vallelonga as his driver and bodyguard.

Their story is dramatized in the 2018 film Green Book,[2] the name of a travel guide for black motorists in the segregated United States.

They say he was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, attended the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, and knew other African American artists and leaders.

[20] Author David Hajdu, who met and befriended Shirley in the 1990s through composer Luther Henderson, wrote: "the man I knew was considerably different from the character Ali portrayed with meticulous elegance in Green Book.

He played as soloist with the orchestra at Milan's La Scala opera house in a program dedicated to George Gershwin's music.