Join the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music as Professors Gloria Cheng and Joy Calico host a symposium commemorating the centenary of composer Pierre Boulez's birth.

A word from guest Joseph Salem:

"Pierre Boulez began Structures, Livre 1 (Book 1) in 1951. The work represents one of his first experiments in serialism, which would become a dominant feature of his compositional method. Roughly a decade later, he completed Structures, Book 2, which capitalizes on trends in mobile and aleatoric musical form that, due to their inherent flexibility, challenge many preconceptions regarding serialism as a compositional method and reflect the influence of his New York colleagues John Cage and Morton Feldman.

The composition of the Structures books coincides with Boulez’s maturation as a composer during the 1950s. During these later years, Boulez’s reputation as an international composer and conductor spread. Boulez travelled to New York and had his works represented by colleagues such as John Cage and David Tudor on the East Coast; meanwhile, his connections on the West Coast – including Lawrence Morton, Robert Craft, and Igor Stravinsky – helped him connect to American audiences. In this talk, I will discuss compositional features of Boulez’s Structures 1a, Structures 2b, and a sample of some other works premiered in California to explore how changes in his compositional method coincided with feedback he received from his stateside interlocutors."