William Balcom

Abstract

Abstract William Bolcom has always been attracted to, as he puts it,”picking up a thread from our American musical history, and taking it to the next step:’ in Seattle, Bolcom began his musical training as a pianist and entered the University of Washington at age eleven to study composition with John Verrall. He later studied with Darius Milhaud in California and Paris and earned a master’s degree from Mills College and a doctor of music degree from Stanford University. Among his many honors is the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in music. He has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and many others. Bolcom’s 1992 opera McTeague was the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s first commission by an American composer. His gigantic score Songs of Innocence and of Experience, a three-hour “entertainment” from the William Blake poems, took twenty-five years to write and has been performed in both Europe and the United States.