Ulysses kays

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Ulysses Kay - Sonatine for Viola and Piano (1939) premiere - BSO Tanglewood July 31

"Clarke, Kay, Berio and Hindemith"

Video streams on Friday evenings that showcase the talented musicians of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Three BSO violists perform on this program of all 20th-century masterworks. Both the English composer Rebecca Clarkes and the German Paul Hindemiths sonatas date from 1919, and both are staples of the viola-piano repertoire. The eminent American composer-conductor Ulysses Kays musical voice has roots deep in the American experience. He wrote his Sonatine for Viola and Piano in 1939, to receive possibly its premiere online performance/recording this year byMary Ferrillo, viola, andBrett Hodgdon, piano. The great Italian composer Luciano Berios Naturale creates a remarkable landscape for viola and percussion evoking Italian folk song and incorporating pre-recorded Sicilian street cries.

Available online fromJuly 31, 2020 at 8PM through August 7
An account for streaming will be required. Sign up here.

Mary Ferrillo, viola
Brett Hodgdon, piano
CLARKE S

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Ulysses Kay

American composer (1917–1995)

Ulysses Simpson Kay (January 7, 1917 in Tucson, Arizona – May 20, 1995 in Englewood, New Jersey) was an American composer. His music is mostly neoclassical in style.^[1]

Life and career

Kay, the nephew of the classic jazz musician King Oliver, studied piano, violin and saxophone.^[2] He attended the University of Arizona, where he was encouraged by the African-American composer William Grant Still. He went for graduate work to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and there worked under Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers.

Ulysses Kay met the eminent neoclassical composer Paul Hindemith in the summer of 1941 at the Berkshire Music Center and followed Hindemith to Yale for a formative year of study from 1941 to 1942.

After a stint as a musician in the United States Navy during World War II,^[3] Kay studied at Columbia University under Otto Luening with the assistance of a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund.^[4] In addition to this prize, Kay received a series of five other