William Bolcom

William Elden Bolcom (born May 26, 1938) is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, and the Detroit Music Award. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973-2008. He is married to mezzo-soprano Joan Morris.

Biography

Bolcom was born in Seattle, Washington. At the age of 11, he entered the University of Washington to study composition privately with George Frederick McKay and John Verrall and piano with Madame Berthe Poncy Jacobson. He later studied with Darius Milhaud at Mills College while working on his Master of Arts degree, with Leland Smith at Stanford University while working on his D.M.A., and with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire, where he received the 2éme Prix de Composition.

Bolcom won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1988 for 12 New Etudes for Piano. In the fall of 1994, he was named the Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan, a position which he still holds. In 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

His many notable students include John Anthony Lennon, Frank Ticheli, Gabriela Lena Frank, Michael Sidney Timpson, Carter Pann, Stephen M. Gryc, Kevin Beavers, John Berners, plus many others.

Performance career

As a pianist, Bolcom has performed and recorded frequently in collaboration with Joan Morris. Bolcom and Morris have recorded twenty albums together, beginning with After the Ball, a collection of popular songs from around the turn of the 20th century. Their primary specialties in both concerts and recordings are showtunes and popular songs from the early 20th century, and cabaret songs (often from failed musicals).

Works

Bolcom's setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, a three-hour work for soloists, choruses, and orchestra culminated 25 years of work on the piece. Its premiere at the Stuttgart Opera in 1984 was followed by performances in Ann Arbor, Chicago's Grant Park, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, St. Louis, Carnegie Hall, and London's Royal Festival Hall, the latter performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin. In 2006, a recording of it won 3 Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and Best Classical Album on Naxos Records.

He has composed three major operas, McTeague, A View From the Bridge, and A Wedding, all commissioned and premiered by the Lyric Opera of Chicago conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. All were composed with librettist Arnold Weinstein, sometimes in collaboration with other writers. McTeague, based on the 1899 novel by Frank Norris, with libretto by Weinstein, was premiered on October 31, 1992. A View from the Bridge, with libretto by Weinstein and Arthur Miller, was premiered October 9, 1999. A Wedding, based on the 1978 motion picture by Robert Altman and John Considine, with libretto by Weinstein and Altman, was premiered on December 11, 2004.

He has also composed concertos such as Lyric Concerto for Flute and Orchestra for James Galway, the Concerto in D for Violin and Orchestra for Sergiu Luca, the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra for Stanley Drucker, and Concert Suite for alto saxophone and band, composed for University of Michigan professor Donald Sinta in 1998. He composed his concerto "Gaea for Two Pianos Left Hand, and Orchestra" for Gary Graffman and Leon Fleisher, both of whom have suffered from debilitating problems with their right hands. It received its first performance on Arpil 11, 1996 by the Baltimore Symphony conducted by David Zinman. The concerto is constructed so that it can be performed in one of three ways, with either piano part alone with reduced orchestra, or with both piano parts and the two reduced orchestras combined into a full orchestra. This challenging structure mimics that of a similar three-in-one work by his teacher Milhaud.

Bolcom's other works include eight symphonies, a number of piano rags (one written in collaboration with William Albright), and four volumes of cabaret songs. William Bolcom was also commissioned to write Receurdos for Two Pianos by The Dranoff International Two Piano Foundation.

List of notable works

• 1957: First Symphony
• 1964: Symphony No. 2 "Oracles"
• 1970: Graceful Ghost Rag
• 1971: Commedia (for "Almost" 18th Century Orchestra)
• 1976: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
• 1977: New Etudes for Piano
• 1977-85: Cabaret Songs (Vol. 1 and 2)
• 1979: Third Symphony (for Chamber Orchestra)
• 1979-1984: Gospel Preludes[1] (Books 1-4)
• 1984: Songs of Innocence and of Experience (William Blake)
• 1984: Lilith for Alto Saxophone and Piano
• 1984: Violin Concerto
• 1986: Fantasia Concertante, for viola, cello and orchestra
• 1986: Fourth Symphony
• 1989: Fifth Symphony
• 1990-92: McTeague
• 1992-93: Lyric Concerto for Flute and Orchestra
• 1993-96: Cabaret Songs (Vol. 3 and 4)
• 1996: Gaea, Concerto for Two Pianos Left Hand, and Orchestra
• 1996-97: Sixth Symphony
• 1997-98: A View from the Bridge
• 1998: Concert Suite (for alto saxophone and band)
• 2000: Piano Quintet
• 2002: Seventh Symphony
• 2004: A Wedding
• 2005: Eighth Symphony
• 2006: Canciones de Lorca
• 2008: First Symphony for Band

Illuminating Bolcom Festival

VocalEssence celebrated the music of William Bolcom with a two-week festival in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota in April 2007. Nine different performances and a number of master classes were part of the festival. The spotlight performance was of Bolcom's setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, performed in Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis with over 400 musicians performing under projections of Blake's accompanying artwork by Wendell K. Harrington.

Music Now Fest 2009

Eastern Michigan University Celebrated its 16th Biennial Contemporary Music Festival by featuring William Bolcom as a guest composer. The three day festival showcased a range of Bolcom's compositions as well as a discussion on "Musical Grass-Roots" led by Bolcom himself.

External links

• The Lied and Art Song Texts Page created and mantained from Emily Ezust Texts and titles of vocal settings in alphabetic order.
• William Bolcom and Joan Morris's website
• "The Unrepentant Eclectic" - An Interview with William Bolcom on AdventuresInMusic.biz, 2005 ("one of the best articles on me so far" - WB)
• Information about Michelle and David Murray, performers of Bolcom's Cabaret Songs
• Rags to Riches: Alumnus of the Year