Songs of Innocence | Songs of Experience
for vocalist, electric guitar, drum set/percussion, flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
Few collections of poetry have inspired artists of all genres quite like William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Composers and musicians from Benjamin Britten to William Bolcom, and even U2 have found inspiration in the words of Blake.
I add my own music to 12 of these poems through my new work Songs of Innocence | Songs of Experience. The words of Blake are reimagined through influences such as rock, pop, jazz, musical theatre, and folk music, and reconsidered through the cultural and socio-political challenges of our modern era in this 40-minute work.
This work was written for the Cincinnati-based ensemble All of the Above, with singer Kate Wakefield and guitarist James Meade. The project was generously supported by Kate and Jarrad Bittner and Arlene and Larry Dunn, whose gifts are matched by a grant from the William Thomas McKinley Foundation, along with support from Rhodes College.
I add my own music to 12 of these poems through my new work Songs of Innocence | Songs of Experience. The words of Blake are reimagined through influences such as rock, pop, jazz, musical theatre, and folk music, and reconsidered through the cultural and socio-political challenges of our modern era in this 40-minute work.
This work was written for the Cincinnati-based ensemble All of the Above, with singer Kate Wakefield and guitarist James Meade. The project was generously supported by Kate and Jarrad Bittner and Arlene and Larry Dunn, whose gifts are matched by a grant from the William Thomas McKinley Foundation, along with support from Rhodes College.
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More about William Thomas McKinley and the McKinley Foundation:
William Thomas McKinley was born in New Kensington, Pennsylvania on December 9, 1938. Known as Tom by his family and friends, he learned both classical and jazz piano at a very early age, became a member of the American Federation of Musicians at the age of twelve, and pursued a diverse and intensely active professional career in both fields becoming one of the most highly regarded and well-known composers of his generation.
His education includes degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Yale University and he studied composition with Nikolai Lapotnikoff, Mel Powell, and Gunther Schuller among others. In 1963, while on a Tanglewood Summer Fellowship, he worked with Aaron Copland.
He composed over four hundred works and received numerous commissions, grants, honors, and awards including those from the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Fromm Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Naumburg Foundation, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His oral biography was published as part of the American Composers Series at Yale University, and in 1995 a bio-bibliography was published by Greenwood Press as part of their series of bio-biographies on artists and musicians.
As a jazz pianist, he has performed and recorded with many of the greats including Wes Montgomery, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Eddie Gomez, Gary Burton, Miroslav Vitous, John Scofield, Roy Haynes, and Billy Hart.
Also a passionate and dedicated teacher, McKinley mentored many composers and jazz pianists over several decades. He held teaching positions at the University of Chicago and the New England Conservatory of Music, where he taught from 1973 to 1995, briefly chairing the Jazz Department in the early 1980s.
McKinley passed away quietly at his home outside of Boston on February 3, 2015.
William Thomas McKinley was born in New Kensington, Pennsylvania on December 9, 1938. Known as Tom by his family and friends, he learned both classical and jazz piano at a very early age, became a member of the American Federation of Musicians at the age of twelve, and pursued a diverse and intensely active professional career in both fields becoming one of the most highly regarded and well-known composers of his generation.
His education includes degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Yale University and he studied composition with Nikolai Lapotnikoff, Mel Powell, and Gunther Schuller among others. In 1963, while on a Tanglewood Summer Fellowship, he worked with Aaron Copland.
He composed over four hundred works and received numerous commissions, grants, honors, and awards including those from the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Fromm Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Naumburg Foundation, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His oral biography was published as part of the American Composers Series at Yale University, and in 1995 a bio-bibliography was published by Greenwood Press as part of their series of bio-biographies on artists and musicians.
As a jazz pianist, he has performed and recorded with many of the greats including Wes Montgomery, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Eddie Gomez, Gary Burton, Miroslav Vitous, John Scofield, Roy Haynes, and Billy Hart.
Also a passionate and dedicated teacher, McKinley mentored many composers and jazz pianists over several decades. He held teaching positions at the University of Chicago and the New England Conservatory of Music, where he taught from 1973 to 1995, briefly chairing the Jazz Department in the early 1980s.
McKinley passed away quietly at his home outside of Boston on February 3, 2015.