Literature Network » William Blake

Master mixer; Grammy-winning composer William Bolcom is as comfortable with cabaret and reggae as he is with symphonies and operas. A festival celebrating his music starts in Minnesota this week, spearheaded by VocalEssence.(ENTERTAINMENT)

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From: Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
Date: 20070415
Author:Anthony, Michael

Byline: Michael Anthony; Staff Writer

Over dinner not long ago, composer William Bolcom recalled the writing of one of the 46 numbers in his monumental setting of William Blake poems, "Songs of Innocence and of Experience."

"When I got to `The Shepherd,' it came out country western," he said. "I said to myself, `I can't be doing this.' But it wouldn't go away, and I had to realize that these seeming disparities of style I was writing could be made to understand each other. They could vibrate among themselves."

Blake, he noted, had done that very thing in the late 18th ...

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