The composer Roger Sessions taught in the Department of Music at UC Berkeley from 1945 to 1953, the year this recording was made of the Griller String Quartet rehearsing for an upcoming performance of the composer’s String Quartet No. 2 at Wheeler Hall. Hertz and Zellerbach halls did not yet exist. Sessions subsequently left Berkeley for Princeton until 1965. In 1966-67 he returned to Berkeley as the Ernest Bloch Visiting Professor. For more on Berkeley’s esteemed Department of Music, see “The Sound of Musicology” in the Summer 2011 issue. Enjoy.
The Sessions Sessions
Related Articles
A Voiceless Opera Based on French Literary Theory? Berkeley’s Got That
For a young composer, it can be difficult not to seem derivative. The problem is getting beyond one’s background and influences. Caroline Shaw, who won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for musical composition, faces this dilemma head-on. In her composition notes she often explains which work formed the grounding of a piece. She acknowledges when inspiration […]
Please Don’t Say ‘Don’t’
If you’ve ever participated in a brainstorming session, you were probably told that you shouldn’t criticize other people’s ideas. The longstanding belief is that civility creates an atmosphere that encourages the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that brainstorming is supposed to produce. However, a new study by Berkeley psychology professor Charlan Nemeth and graduate student Matthew […]
Upward Mobility
Joan Jeanrenaud has forged a second career as a composer. As Joan Jeanrenaud carefully wends her way down the ramp leading from Mills College’s recently restored music building, she wields the cane in her right hand with casual precision. Though multiple sclerosis has mostly curtailed the cellist’s globe trotting ways, Jeanrenaud’s sonic explorations have multiplied exponentially even […]