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, a[1] Grammy Award, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. He taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973 until 2008. He is married to mezzo-soprano Joan Morris.
William Bolcom
May 26, 1938
American
Composer, Pianist
Early life and education[edit]
Bolcom was born in Seattle, Washington. At age 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 2ème Prix de Composition".[2]
Career[edit]
Bolcom won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1988 for 12 New Etudes for Piano.[3] In the fall of 1994, he was named the Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan. In 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Notable students include Gabriela Lena Frank, Carter Pann, Elena Ruehr, Derek Bermel, Joel Puckett, and David T. Little.
As a pianist, Bolcom has performed and recorded frequently in collaboration with Joan Morris, whom he married in 1975.[4] They have recorded more than two dozen albums together, beginning with the Grammy-nominated 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 show tunes, parlor, and popular songs from the late 19th and early 20th century by Henry Russell, Henry Clay Work and others, and cabaret songs.
As a soloist, Bolcom has recorded his own compositions, as well as music by George Gershwin, Darius Milhaud[4] and several of the classic ragtime composers. His compositions have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series.[5]
Festivals[edit]
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.
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.[14]
Le Piano Ouvert celebrated Bolcom's 75th birthday with a week of concerts and masterclasses in Paris in March 2014. William Bolcom and Joan Morris both performed, and were featured on France Musique[15] in a series of live performances and interviews.[16] The festival was directed by Guy Livingston, Anne de Fornel, and David Levi. Concerts were held at the Mona Bismarck American Center in Paris, and at the Hôtel Talleyrand on Place de la Concorde.[17]
In April 2022, as part of the international Heidelberger Frühling Music Festival, William Bolcom's second piano concerto was premiered by Igor Levit and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by Elim Chan in the auditorium of the Neue Universität Heidelberg.[18]
See Joan Morris page for Bolcom and Morris discography