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Roger Huntington Sessions (28 December 1896 – 16 March 1985) was an American composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
, critic and teacher of music.

Born in Brooklyn, New York to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution, Sessions studied music at Harvard University
Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
 from the age of 14. There, he wrote for and subsequently edited the Harvard Musical Review. Graduating at age 18, he went on to study at Yale University
Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....
 under Horatio Parker
Horatio Parker

Horatio Parker was an United States composer and teacher. He was a central figure in musical life in New Haven, Connecticut in the late 19th century, and is also remembered as the teacher of Charles Ives....
 and Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch

Ernest Bloch was a Switzerland-born United States composer....
 before teaching at Smith College
Smith College

Smith College is a Private university, Independent school Women's colleges in the United States Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Northampton, Massachusetts....
.






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Roger Huntington Sessions (28 December 1896 – 16 March 1985) was an American composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
, critic and teacher of music.

Born in Brooklyn, New York to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution, Sessions studied music at Harvard University
Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
 from the age of 14. There, he wrote for and subsequently edited the Harvard Musical Review. Graduating at age 18, he went on to study at Yale University
Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....
 under Horatio Parker
Horatio Parker

Horatio Parker was an United States composer and teacher. He was a central figure in musical life in New Haven, Connecticut in the late 19th century, and is also remembered as the teacher of Charles Ives....
 and Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch

Ernest Bloch was a Switzerland-born United States composer....
 before teaching at Smith College
Smith College

Smith College is a Private university, Independent school Women's colleges in the United States Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Northampton, Massachusetts....
. His first major compositions were made while travelling Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 in his mid twenties and early thirties with his wife.

Returning to the United States in 1933, he taught first at Princeton University
Princeton University

Princeton University is a private university university located in Princeton, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and has the largest per-student Financial endowment in the world....
, moved to the University of California
University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges s...
, Berkeley, where he taught from 1946 to 1954, and then returned to Princeton until retiring in 1965, although he continued to teach on a part-time basis at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located on the Upper West Side in New York City, is a performing arts music school. It is informally identified as simply Juilliard, and trains in dance, drama, and music....
 until 1983. His notable students include Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt

Milton Byron Babbitt is an American composer. He is particularly noted for his pioneering Serialism, and electronic music....
, Donald Bohlen, Kenneth Frazelle, Larry Thomas Bell, Earl Kim
Earl Kim

Earl Kim was a Korean-United States composer.Kim was born in Dinuba, California, to immigrant Korean parents. He began piano studies at age ten and soon developed an interest in composition, studying in Los Angeles and Berkeley with, among others, Arnold Schoenberg, Ernest Bloch, and Roger Sessions....
, Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Order of the British Empire , is an English composer and Conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music....
, David Del Tredici
David Del Tredici

David Del Tredici, born March 16, 1937 in Cloverdale, California, is an United States Contemporary music.After making his piano debut with the San Francisco Symphony at 17, he went on to receive a B.A....
, John Adams, Carlton Gamer
Carlton Gamer

Carlton Gamer is an American composer and music theorist. He has taught at Princeton University, the University of Michigan, and Colorado College....
, Miriam Gideon
Miriam Gideon

Miriam Gideon was an American composer.She studied organ with her uncle Henry Gideon and piano with Felix Fox. She also studied with Martin Bernstein, Marion Bauer, Charles Haubiel, and Jacques Pillois....
, John Harbison
John Harbison

John Harris Harbison is a composer, best known for his operas and large choral works.Harbison won the prestigious BMI Foundation's Student Composer Awards for composition at the age of sixteen in 1954....
, Robert Helps
Robert Helps

Robert Helps was an American pianist and composer.He was one of the most distinguished pupils of Abby Whiteside and perhaps the most well-known practitioner of her theories of rhythm and of a technique directed from the humerus rather than the fingers....
, Will Ogdon
Will Ogdon

Will Ogdon is an American composer. He taught at the University of California, San Diego beginning in 1966, and retiring in 1991.He was originally from Redlands, California....
, Walter Hekster
Walter Hekster

Walter Hekster is a Netherlands composer, clarinetist and Conductor of classical music, specializing in contemporary classical music.Studying Musical composition with Ton de Leeuw and clarinet with Bram de Wilde, he graduated from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in 1961....
, Andrew Imbrie
Andrew Imbrie

Andrew Welsh Imbrie was an United States composer of contemporary european classical music....
, David Lewin
David Lewin

David Lewin was an American music theorist, music critic and composer. Called "the most original and far-ranging theorist of his generation" , he did his most influential theoretical work on the development of transformational theory, which involves the application of mathematical group theory to music....
, Claire Polin
Claire Polin

Claire Polin was a United States composer of contemporary classical music, musicologist, and flutist.She obtained degrees in music from the Philadelphia Conservatory; she also received her Master's Degree at the Juilliard School and her doctorate at Tanglewood....
, Einojuhani Rautavaara
Einojuhani Rautavaara

Einojuhani Rautavaara is a Finland composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius....
, William Schimmel
William Schimmel

William Schimmel is one of the principal architects in the resurgence of the accordion, the revival of the Tango music in America, and the philosophy of "Musical Reality" ....
, George Tsontakis
George Tsontakis

George Tsontakis is an United States composer and conducting.Tsontakis studied composition with Hugo Weisgall and Roger Sessions at Juilliard from 1974-78, and later with Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome....
, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, John Veale
John Veale

John Douglas Louis Veale was an England classical composer.He was born in Shortlands, Bromley, Kent. He was educated at Repton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, alongside Kenneth Tynan....
, Roger Nixon
Roger Nixon

Roger Nixon is an United States composer, musician, and professor of music. He has written over 60 compositions for orchestra, band, choir and opera....
, Alan Fletcher
Alan Fletcher (composer)

Alan Fletcher is President and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School and both an accomplished music administrator and respected composer. He came to Aspen in March 2006 from the positions of Head of the School of Music and Professor of Music at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he had been since 2001, and bef...
, Peter Westergaard
Peter Westergaard

Peter Talbot Westergaard is an United States composer and music theorist. He is Professor Emeritus of music at Princeton University....
, Rolv Yttrehus
Rolv Yttrehus

Rolv Berger Yttrehus is an United States composer of contemporary classical music.He holds degrees from the University of Minnesota and University of Michigan and a Diploma from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome....
, and Henry Weinberg.

He died at the age of 88 in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton, New Jersey is located in Mercer County, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. Princeton University has been sited in the town since 1756....
.

Style

His works from the Solo Violin Sonata of 1953 on are almost all serial
Serialism

In music, serialism is a technique for Musical composition#A musical composition that uses Set to describe Aspect of music, and allows the Permutation of those sets....
. Those up to 1930 or so are more or less neoclassical
Neoclassicism (music)

Neoclassicism in music was a 20th century development, particularly popular in the period between the two World Wars, in which composers drew inspiration from music of the 18th century, though some of the inspiring canon was drawn as much from the Baroque music period as the Classical music era period ? for this reason, music which draws infl...
 in sound, while those written between 1930 and 1951 are more or less tonal
Tonality

Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchy pitch relationships are based on a Key "center" or Tonic . The term tonalit? originated with Alexandre-?tienne Choron and was borrowed by Fran?ois-Joseph F?tis in 1840 ....
 but harmonically complex.

Major Works

  • Symphony No. 1 (1927)
  • The Black Maskers Orchestral Suite (1928)
  • Piano Sonata No. 1 (1930)
  • Violin Concerto (1935)
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1936)
  • Duo for Violin and Piano (1942)
  • From my Diary (Pages from a Diary) (1940)
  • Piano Sonata No. 2 (1946)
  • Symphony No. 2 (1946)
  • The Trial of Lucullus (1947), A one act opera
  • String Quartet No. 2 (1951)
  • Sonata for Solo Violin (1953)
  • Idyll of Theocritus (1954)
  • Piano Concerto (1956)
  • Symphony No. 3 (1957)
  • Symphony No. 4 (1958)
  • String Quintet (1958)
  • Divertimento for Orchestra (1959)
  • Montezuma
    Montezuma

    Montezuma, Moctezuma, Moteczoma, Motecuhzoma, Moteuczomah, are variant spellings and may refer to:...
     (1963), An opera in three acts
  • Symphony No. 5 (1964)
  • Piano Sonata No. 3 (1965)
  • Symphony No. 6 (1966)
  • Six Pieces for Violoncello (1966)
  • Symphony No. 7 (1967)
  • Symphony No. 8 (1968)
  • Rhapsody for Orchestra (1970)
  • Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, and Orchestra (1971)
  • When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (1971)
  • Concertino for Chamber Orchestra (1972)
  • Five Pieces for Piano (1975)
  • Symphony No. 9 (October 1978)
  • Concerto for Orchestra (1981)
  • Duo for Violin and Violoncello (1981), incomplete


Some works received their first professional performance many years after completion. The Sixth Symphony (1966) was given its first complete performance March 4 1977 by the Juilliard Orchestra in New York City

The Ninth Symphony (1978), commissioned by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra

The Syracuse Symphony Orchestra is a 79 member orchestra located in Syracuse, NY. It was founded in 1961 as a community orchestra by a grant from the Gifford Foundation....
 and Frederik Prausnitz, was premiered January 17 1980 by the same orchestra conducted by Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene

Christopher Keene was a highly-acclaimed American Conducting.Born in Berkeley, California, Keene studied at the University of California, Berkeley....
.

Publications

  • Cone, Edward, ed. Roger Sessions on Music: Collected Essays. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press. 1979. ISBN 0-691-09126-9 and ISBN 0-691-10074-8.


  • Olmstead, Andrea. Conversations with Roger Sessions. Boston: Northeastern University Press. 1987. ISBN 1-55553-010-9.
  • Olmstead, Andrea. The Correspondence of Roger Sessions. Boston: Northeastern University Press. 1992. ISBN 1-55553-122-9.
  • Sessions, Roger. Harmonic Practice. New York: Harcourt, Brace. 1951. LCCN 51008476.
  • Sessions, Roger. Reflections on the Music Life in the United States. New York: Merlin Press. 1956. LCCN 56012976.
  • Sessions, Roger. The Musical Experience of Composer, Performer, Listener. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1950, republished 1958.
  • Sessions, Roger. Questions About Music. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1970, reprinted New York: Norton, 1971. ISBN 0-674-74350-4.


External links

  • contains a discography