William Bolcom

William Bolcom Elden (* 26. May 1938 in Seattle , Washington ) is an US -American composer and pianist .

life and work

Bolcom came to the University of Washington at the age of 11, where he studied composition with George Fredrick McKay and John Verall and piano with Berthe Poncy Jacobson . This was followed by studies with Darius Milhaud at Mills College , with Leland Smith at Stanford University and with Olivier Messiaen at the Conservatoire de Paris , where he received a second prize for composition.

In 1953 he won the BMI Student Composer Awards . In 1988 Bolcom received the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his 12 New Etudes for Piano . In the fall of 1994 he was named Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan ; he holds this position to this day.

Bolcom worked 25 years on his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience based on William Blake , a full-length work for soloists, choir and orchestra. The 1984 premiere at the Stuttgart Opera was followed by performances in Ann Arbor , Grant Park Chicago, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in St. Louis , Carnegie Hall and the Royal Festival Hall in London , the latter played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin . In 2006 the recording of this work on the Naxos label received 3 Grammy Awards (best choral performance, best contemporary classical composition and best publication in the field of classical music).

On September 15, 2006, his Canciones de Lorca for tenor and orchestra were premiered by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Carl St. Clair and the soloist Plácido Domingo at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa , California .

Also active as a pianist, Bolcom has performed and recorded his own works, often with his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris . Bolcom and Morris recorded 20 record albums together, starting with After the Ball, a collection of popular songs from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Her special preferences, both in concerts and on recordings, are effective and popular songs from the beginning of the 20th century, as well as cabaret songs (often from musicals that were otherwise a flop).

Bolcom's catalog raisonné includes operas (including A View from the Bridge based on a libretto by Arthur Miller and Arnold Weinstein, premiered in 1999 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago ; most recently: A Wedding from 2004), 6 symphonies and chamber music. Bolcom also wrote numerous ragtimes , some with the composer William Albright and many cabaret songs composed for his wife (including the well-known Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise ).

He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1993 .

Web links

• William Bolcom and Joan Morris website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Academy Members. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed January 10, 2019 .