William Bolcom: Symphony No. 4/Session 1

Joan Morris, mezzo-soprano; St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin William Bolcom was born on May 26, 1938, in Seattle, and trained at the University of Washington and Stanford University, as well as with Darius Milhaud. He has written four symphonies, concertos for piano and for violin, chamber and solo instrumental music, and the mammoth setting of the forty-six Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake, nearly thirty years in the composing. In the early 1960s Bolcom worked with improvisational theater groups. Between 1965 and 1967 he wrote four "session pieces," all concerning matters of ensemble and group dynamics and influenced by his theater experience. Session I was composed in Paris and New York during the spring of 1965 at the request of Luciano Berio, for his Domaine Musical Ensemble in Berlin that summer. Like a jam session, the work is divided into short sections: Warmup, Session I, Discussion, Session II, Interlude, Solos, Chorale, and Final Session. T