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William Bolcom

Named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America and honored with multiple Grammy Awards for his ground-breaking setting of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, William Bolcom is a composer of cabaret songs, concertos, sonatas, operas, symphonies, and much more.  He was awarded the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his 12 New Etudes for piano.

With his wife mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, he has performed in concert for 39 years throughout the United States, Canada, and abroad. In addition their live performances, Bolcom and Morris have recorded two dozen albums. Their first one, After the Ball, garnered a Grammy nomination for Joan Morris. Their most recent recordings are two albums of songs by lyricist E. Y. “Yip” Harburg and Gus Kahn on Original Cast Records, Bolcom’s complete Cabaret Songs, written with lyricist Arnold Weinstein, on Centaur, andSomeone Talked:  Memories of World War II with tenor Robert White and narrator Hazen Schumacher, available on Equilibrium.
In the spring of 2007 Bolcom was feted in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, with a two and a half-week festival of his music, including master classes, recitals and concerts of his vocal, organ and chamber music. Titled Illuminating Bolcom, the festival was highlighted by two performances of Songs of Innocence and of Experience accompanied by animated projections of Blake's illuminations. The animations were commissioned by VocalEssence and created by projection designer Wendall K. Harrington, who designed the projections for Bolcom's opera,A View from the Bridge.

Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973-2008. In the fall of 1994 the University of Michigan named him the Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Composition.