“What made Boulanger a great and magnetic teacher, was less the imposition of an aesthetic than the transmission of discipline and the encouragement of individuality. Indeed, the sheer range of her pupils’ styles and development is astonishing.” —Leon Botstein
Program Eleven samples the impressive diversity of her students’ achievements, from Paris Violon by Michel Legrand, the Oscar and Grammy-winner whose 250-plus film scores include The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Yentl, to classical chamber works including Enchanted Preludes, Elliott Carter’s polyrhythmic duet for cello and flute; a piano sonata by George Walker, the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music; songs by Marc Blitzstein, Thea Musgrave and David Conte; the posthumously rediscovered Adagio, by Roger Sessions; three of Czech-born Pulitzer Prize-winner Karel Husa’s Twelve Moravian Songs; Roy Harris’s rhapsodic, improvisatory Toccata for piano; Philip Glass’s Third String Quartet, “Mishima,” originally written for Paul Schrader’s film of the same name; a solo flute tango study by Astor Piazzolla, master of Argentina’s tango nuevo; and Adolphus Hailstork’s moving Adagio for Strings.
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