Peter Smith/University Musical Society
Peter Smith/University Musical Society
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LEONARD SLATKIN CONDUCTS WILLIAM BOLCOM
USA - During April, the University of Michigan School of Music played host to a huge scale recording of the American composer William Bolcom's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' (after William Blake).
This is a piece of music written on the very grandest of scales - it is a work of over 3 hours for soloists, choruses, and orchestra, culminating from 25 years of work by the composer. Premiered at the Stuttgart Opera in 1984, subsequent performances followed in Ann Arbor, Chicago's Grant Park, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Powell Hall in St. Louis, and Carnegie Hall. The work was performed in November 1996 in London's Royal Festival Hall by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, under Leonard Slatkin, and soloists (including Joan Morris and Andre De Shields), and was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 throughout the United Kingdom. On April 8, 2004, it was part of the opening season of concerts in the renovated Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan (with Christine Brewer as the soprano soloist) and was recorded by Naxos.
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