William Bolcom and Joan Morris To Perform The Second Concert Of The Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series

William Bolcom and Joan Morris will perform the second concert of The Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series on Thursday, December 10, at 7:30 PM in Millard Auditorium, on the University of Hartford campus. A special pre-concert dinner precedes the performance and begins at 6:00 PM in the University's 1877 Club. Patrons may purchase Series subscriptions or individual tickets to the performances and/or the pre-concert dinners. Admission to the concert is $30 with discounts available for seniors, students, and groups. Please call the University Box Office at 860.768.4228 or 800.274.8587 or visit www.hartford.edu/hartt for tickets and information.

For more than three decades William Bolcom and Joan Morris have been delighting audiences around the world with their witty and stylish interpretations of American Song. With more than two-dozen albums to their credit, including their best-selling Nonesuch disc After the Ball, Bolcom and Morris have established themselves as a unique resource for American music, performing repertoire from Stephen Foster to Stephen Sondheim

William Bolcom, one of few living preeminent composers, was 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. 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.

Bolcom began composition studies at the age of eleven with George FredRick McKay and John Verall at the University of Washington while continuing piano lessons with Madame Berthe Poncy Jacobson. He later studied with Darius Milhaud at Mills College while working on his Master of Arts degree, with Leland Smith at Stanford University while working on his D.M.A., and with Olivier Messiaen and Milhaud at the Paris Conservatoire, where he received the 2éme Prix de Composition.

Bolcom will be at The Hartt School for a week-long residency, where both he and his work will be featured in various performances.

Joan Morris was born in Portland, Oregon, and attended Gonzaga University prior to her scholarship studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. She continued speech and voice studies with Clifford Jackson and Frederica Schmitz-Svevo while appearing in off-Broadway and road productions and with harpist Jay Miller at the Cafe Carlyle, the Waldorf-Astoria's Peacock Alley, and other Manhattan night spots.

In the words of the Chicago Tribune, "Her voice is notable for ease, flexibility, expressiveness; you understand every word she sings, and in these songs the words deserve to be heard. She projects not just a song, but the character singing it, and gives that character her own irresistibly funny and winning personality."

The Hartt School is the comprehensive performing arts conservatory of the University of Hartford that offers innovative degree programs in music, dance, and theatre. With more than 400 vocal and instrumental concerts, recitals, plays, master classes, opera performances, dance concerts, and musical theatre productions a year, performance is central to Hartt's curriculum. For more information on The Hartt School, visit www.hartford.edu/hartt.

This Series has been made possible by a grant from the Richard P. Garmany Fund at the HartFord Foundation for Public Giving. The grant is one of the first awarded by the Garmany Fund. Mr. Garmany, who lived in Avon and was an executive at Aetna, created the fund before his death in July 2008.

HartFord Foundation for Public Giving is the community foundation for the 29-town Greater Hartford region, dedicated to improving the quality of life for area residents. The Foundation receives gifts from thousands of generous individuals and families, and last year, awarded grants of more than $27 million to a broad range of area nonprofits.

Photo credit: Katryn Conlin

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