'One is 'Isn't It a Lovely Day?' and the other is 'What'll I Do?,' the one song my late father could play on the piano. In the '70s, for Nonesuch, they revived the vocal music of such 19th-century composers as Henry Russell and Henry Clay Work, and they have recorded vocal and piano music by George Gershwin.Īlso scheduled for release, remastered on CD, is their Irving Berlin collection for RCA, 'The Girl on the Magazine Cover.' 'With more room on the CD, they are going to include two things that were squeezed out of the LP,' Bolcom said. For the same label, he and Joan Morris are planning a Cole Porter album. 'Working with my wife is a constant joy,' he said.īolcom has a new compact disc recording of 18 pieces by Scott Joplin about to appear on a new recording label being launched by Seymour Solomon, formerly of Vanguard. I suppose I would be a musicien ame'ricain, but without waving a flag.' 'When people ask me what I am, I just say 'a musician.' Debussy used to call himself a musicien franc ais.

'I have sometimes felt I was restoring the old composer-performer style,' he said. His 'Songs of Innocence and Experience,' with texts from the well-known collection of poems by William Blake, were a runner-up for the Pulitzer in 1984, and some connoisseurs believe that this year's award was a belated compensation for his failure to win that year.Īsked to describe himself late yesterday afternoon, shortly after receiving word that he won the prestigious award, Bolcom fished a moment for words and finally slipped into French. 'I suppose this news may accelerate the process of publication,' he said. Bolcom was on the phone to his publisher at Marks, Bernard Kalban, discussing publication of the e'tudes, when the news of his Pulitzer arrived on his other phone. 'Piano e'tudes should be difficult, but these have elements of style as well as technique.' His advice to anyone planning to study the prize-winning music would be to 'practice very hard,' he said.Ī sequel to an earlier set simply called '12 Etudes,' it is about to be issued on New World Records and is scheduled for publication later this year by E.B. But, he added, 'the center of my life is still composition and always has been.'īolcom, who will be 50 in May, was awarded the Pulitzer for his '12 New Etudes for Piano,' a still unpublished collection. 'My advice to other composers is 'If you can, continue to perform,' ' he said yesterday from his home in Ann Arbor, where he is a professor of composition at the University of Michigan.

Another album, 'Bolcom Plays His Own Rags' on the Jazzology label, has long been a collector's item.

'After the Ball,' their collection of turn-of-the century songs on the Nonesuch label, was one of the best recordings of the 1970s and may become an all-time American classic.īolcom was a primary influence in the ragtime revival of the 1970s with his piano album 'Heliotrope Bouquet' (Nonesuch), which introduced many listeners to the music of Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers - including William Bolcom. Together, they have long deserved an award of some kind for distinguished service to American music, both classical and popular, which they have rediscovered, restored, performed on records and in all kinds of auditoriums, large and small. He is one of the nation's most unpretentious serious composers, however, and is probably best known to the average music lover as a piano soloist and as the accompanist to his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris. William Bolcom, who won a belated Pulitzer Prize for music yesterday, is a prolific and widely acclaimed composer, with two operas, several symphonies, a number of chamber and vocal works and a host of piano compositions to his credit.

William bolcom ragtime