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William (Elden) Bolcom was
born in Seattle, Washington
in 1938. He is a composer,
pianist, and author. He began
composition studies with John
Verall at an early age and
continued with Darius Milhaud
at Mills College, and with
Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen
in Paris. After a period of
work with Leland Smith at
Stanford University, he
taught at the University of
Washington and Queens
College, CUNY. While in New
York, Bolcom developed the
technique and style of
playing ragtime that, through
concerts and recordings,
placed him in the forefront
of the ragtime revival; he
has also composed original
rags, among them The
Graceful Ghost, which was
used by Twyla Tharp in The
Raggedy Dances (1972).
From 1968 to 1970, he was
composer-in-residence at the
Yale University Drama School
and the New York University
School of the
Arts.
In 1971, Bolcom met the
mezzo-soprano Joan Morris,
whom he married in 1975 and
with whom he began to develop
programs on the history of
the American popular song.
Their recitals and recordings
of songs by Henry Russell,
Henry Clay work, and others
have done much to arouse
interest in parlor and
music-hall songs of the 19th
and early 20th centuries.
Bolcom has also made solo
albums of music by Gershwin,
Milhaud, and himself. In
1973, he took a position at
the University of Michigan,
where he became associate
professor of composition in
1977. With Robert Kimball, he
wrote the book Reminiscing
with Sissle and Blake
(1973); he also edited the
collected writings of
Rochberg, The Aesthetics
of Survival: a Composer's
View of 20th-century Music
(1984).
Bolcom's intent to break down
artificial distinctions
between popular and serious
music is realized in his own
compositions, in which widely
differing styles are often
juxtaposed within the same
work. An intensely dramatic
atonality is contrasted with
the song styles of World War
I (as in the cabaret opera
Dynamite Tonight),
ragtime (Black Host),
old popular tunes (Whisper
Moon), or a waltz
(Piano Quartet).
Bolcom's ideology, rooted in
the transcendentalism of
Blake, inspires compositions
concerned with momentous
religious and philosophical
themes, a concern expressed
in intense, even flamboyant
music of vivid illustrative
power. These qualities are
evident in Frescoes,
and most notably in the
monumental setting of the 46
poems in William Blake's
Songs of Innocence and
Experience. The latter
work, a summation of Bolcom's
achievements as a composer,
was highly acclaimed at its
world premiere in Stuttgart
on January 8,
1984. |
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