“I sit in one of the dives on 52nd Street…” ~W.H. Auden

Love. Lust. Longing. Loss. Libido. These are some of the themes that run through this evening of songs by Pulitzer and Grammy award-winning composer William Bolcom (1938-). In his desire to break the barrier between “serious” and popular music, Bolcom blurs the lines between cabaret, classical, music theater, and even country music in his setting of texts by Auden, E.E. Cummings, Shakespeare and his long-time collaborator Arnold Weinstein. The result is a body of work which reveals a darkly humorous, sardonic world view.   

Soprano Rayanne Dupuis and pianist Guy Livingston present a program which features “Poèmes libres de droits” a new song cycle written for them, on poems by Guillaume Apollinaire: a wistful, surrealist tip of the hat to Bolcom’s formative Paris years.