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Purchase James Bolle Late Works from Albany Records.

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Listen to Sinfonia VI on SoundCloud.

James Bolle, "The Jet Set" on Soundcloud

Listen to the premier performance of this song cycle by James Bolle with text by August Kleinzahler.

Janna Baty, mezzo-soprano; Christopher Gross, cello; Nicholas Gleason, percussion

from James Bolle’s 80th Birthday Concert at the Peterborough Town Hall, Peterborough, NH, August 20, 2011.

Late Works CD Now Available

CD Cover

From the Liner Notes:
In Remembrance of the Terrifying 20th Century

Around 1990 I discovered a new (to me) way to organize an extended instrumental work. This involved discrete sections, each small independent piece to be experienced separately, with short pauses between the sections. One thing happens and then another thing happens. It is left to the listener to make something (or nothing) out of the juxtaposition.

The various sections are quite different one from another, expressing contrasting characters and moods. The pauses give an opportunity to rest, regroup, or drift away. The larger pauses between movements are just bigger, longer silences.

Two analogies may be helpful:

The New York poet Frank O'Hara when asked to describe his work called it "personism," and then said he didn’t know what that meant. He described these poems as "I do this, now I do that."

Perhaps "personism" is applicable to my music, in that I speak (sing) directly to the listener, not about some other story or subject, but like a conversation, except that the subject changes a lot.

Another comparison is with landscapes of David Hockney. Recently he has made paintings of his native Yorkshire composed of several small paintings, separated by spaces, which can be viewed as complete in themselves, or as part of the whole.

Later he did a mural-sized painting of the Grand Canyon made up of sixty separate paintings with more muted colors, making an even grander application of this idea. This way of creating is (maybe) similar to my approach.

A characteristic of the three Sinfonias is that they have other composers' music stolen and inserted in the mix. This juxtaposition is both frivolously idiosyncratic and a deeply felt bond with the music of the distant past.

Contents

Two Sea Monsters
James Bolle, composer
Christopher Gross, cello, Robert Black, double bass
Music for Flute, Strings, and Wood Blocks
James Bolle, composer
Jessi Rosinski, flute, Christina McGann, violin, Elizabeth Weisser, viola, Christopher Gross, cello
String Quartet No. 3: "Whistling in the Dark"
James Bolle, composer
Christina McGann, Stephen Miahky, violins, Elizabeth Weisser, viola, Christopher Gross, cello
Sinfonia VI
James Bolle, composer
Basil Reeve, oboe, David Fulmer, violin, Ben Ullery, viola, Christopher Gross, cello, Robert Black, double bass, Nicholas Gleason, percussion

Recorded live in Peterborough Town House, Peterborough, NH

Session I July 2010
Music for Flute, Strings, and Wood Blocks
String Quartet No. 3
Produced and engineered by Judith Sherman
Session II August 2011
Two Sea Monsters
Sinfonia VI
Produced and engineered by Jeanne Velonis

Listen to Sinfonia VI

Purchase

James Bolle Late Works may be purchased from Albany Records.