Roger Huntington Sessions (28 December 189616 March 1985) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, critic, and teacher of music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

.

Life

Sessions was born in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington

Samuel Huntington (statesman)

Samuel Huntington was a jurist, statesman, and Patriot in the American Revolution from Connecticut. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation...

, a signer of the Declaration of Independence

Declaration of independence

A declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...

. Roger studied music at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 from the age of 14. There he wrote for and subsequently edited the Harvard Musical Review. Graduating at age 18, he went on to study at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 under Horatio Parker

Horatio Parker

Horatio William Parker was an American composer, organist and teacher. He was a central figure in musical life in New Haven, Connecticut in the late 19th century, and is best remembered as the teacher of Charles Ives....

 and Ernest Bloch

Ernest Bloch

Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer.-Life:Bloch was born in Geneva and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe...

 before teaching at Smith College

Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

. His first major compositions came while he was travelling Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 with his wife in his mid-twenties and early thirties.

Returning to the United States in 1933, he taught first at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 (from 1936), moved to the University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

, Berkeley, where he taught from 1945 to 1953, and then returned to Princeton until retiring in 1965. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 in 1961. He was appointed Bloch Professor at Berkeley (1966–67), and gave the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures

Charles Eliot Norton Lectures

The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard University was established in 1925 as an annual lectureship in "poetry in the broadest sense" and named for the university's former professor of fine arts. Distinguished creative figures and scholars in the arts, including painting,...

 at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1968–69. He continued to teach on a part-time basis at the Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 from 1966 until 1983.

His notable students include John Adams, Milton Babbitt

Milton Babbitt

Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...

, Jack Behrens

Jack Behrens

Jack Behrens is a Canadian composer, music educator, and writer of American birth. A member of the Canadian League of Composers and an associate of the Canadian Music Centre, his music has been performed throughout North America and on CBC Radio and radio stations in he United States...

, Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...

, Robert Cogan

Robert Cogan

Robert Cogan is an American music theorist, composer and teacher, who seeks to challenge new domains of musical composition and theory....

, Robert Black

Robert Black (conductor)

Note: Not to be confused with the saxophonist or the double-bass player named Robert Black.Robert Carlisle Black was an American conductor, pianist and composer...

, Edward T. Cone

Edward T. Cone

Edward Toner Cone was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, and philanthropist.Cone studied composition under Roger Sessions at Princeton University, receiving his bachelor's in 1939...

, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...

, David Del Tredici

David Del Tredici

David Del Tredici, born March 16, 1937 in Cloverdale, California, is an American composer. According to Del Tredici's website, Aaron Copland said David Del Tredici "is that rare find among composers — a creator with a truly original gift...

, Alan Fletcher

Alan Fletcher (composer)

Alan Fletcher is President and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School and both an accomplished music administrator and respected composer...

, Carlton Gamer

Carlton Gamer

Carlton Gamer is an American composer and music theorist. He has taught at Princeton University, the University of Michigan, and Colorado College...

, Steven Gellman

Steven Gellman

Steven Gellman is a Canadian composer and pianist. He has been commissioned to write works for the Besançon International Music Festival, the CBC Symphony Orchestra, the Hamilton Philharmonic, McGill University, Musica Camerata, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra,...

, Miriam Gideon

Miriam Gideon

Miriam Gideon was an American composer.-Life:She studied organ with her uncle Henry Gideon and piano with Felix Fox. She also studied with Martin Bernstein, Marion Bauer, Charles Haubiel, and Jacques Pillois...

, John Harbison

John Harbison

John Harris Harbison is an American composer, best known for his operas and large choral works.-Life:...

, Walter Hekster

Walter Hekster

Walter Hekster is a Dutch composer, clarinetist and conductor of classical music, specializing in contemporary classical music....

, Robert Helps

Robert Helps

Robert Helps was an American pianist and composer....

, Andrew Imbrie

Andrew Imbrie

Andrew Welsh Imbrie was an American composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Imbrie was born in New York on April 6, 1921, and began his musical training as a pianist when he was 4. In 1937, he went to Paris to study briefly with Nadia Boulanger...

, Earl Kim

Earl Kim

Earl Kim was a Korean-American composer.Kim was born in Dinuba, California, to immigrant Korean parents. He began piano studies at age ten and soon developed an interest in composition, studying in Los Angeles and Berkeley with, among others, Arnold Schoenberg, Ernest Bloch, and Roger Sessions...

, Fred Lerdahl

Fred Lerdahl

Alfred Whitford Lerdahl is the Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on pitch space and cognitive constraints on compositional systems or "musical grammar[s]." He has written many orchestral and chamber...

, Leon Kirchner

Leon Kirchner

Leon Kirchner was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 3.Kirchner was born in Brooklyn, New York...

, David Lewin

David Lewin

David Lewin was an American music theorist, music critic and composer. Called "the most original and far-ranging theorist of his generation" , he did his most influential theoretical work on the development of transformational theory, which involves the application of mathematical group theory to...

, William Mayer

William Mayer

William Mayer , is an American composer.Mayer entered Yale University in 1944, but his college years were interrupted by military service...

, Conlon Nancarrow

Conlon Nancarrow

Conlon Nancarrow was a United States-born composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. He became a Mexican citizen in 1955.Nancarrow is best remembered for the pieces he wrote for the player piano...

, Roger Nixon

Roger Nixon

Roger Nixon was an American composer, musician, and professor of music. He wrote over 60 compositions for orchestra, band, choir and opera...

, Will Ogdon

Will Ogdon

Will Ogdon is an American composer. He taught at the University of California, San Diego beginning in 1966, and retiring in 1991.He was originally from Redlands, California...

, Claire Polin

Claire Polin

Claire Polin was an American composer of contemporary classical music, musicologist, and flutist....

, Einojuhani Rautavaara

Einojuhani Rautavaara

Einojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...

, William Schimmel

William Schimmel

William Schimmel is one of the principal architects in the resurgence of the accordion, and the philosophy of "Musical Reality"...

, Richard St. Clair

Richard St. Clair

Richard St. Clair is an American composer, pedagogue, and pianist.-Life History and Musical Career:Richard St. Clair, a noted American musician, is descended from both Franco-Scottish roots on his father's side, and Norwegian-Swedish roots on his mother's side...

, George Tsontakis

George Tsontakis

George Tsontakis is an American composer and conductor.Tsontakis studied composition with Hugo Weisgall and Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School from 1974 to 1978, and later with Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome...

, John Veale

John Veale

John Douglas Louis Veale was an English classical composer.He was born in Shortlands, Bromley, Kent; his father, Douglas Veale, later served as Registrar of the University of Oxford and received a knighthood. John Veale was educated at Repton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford , alongside Kenneth...

, Peter Westergaard

Peter Westergaard

Peter Talbot Westergaard is an American composer and music theorist. He is Professor Emeritus of music at Princeton University.-Biography:...

, Rolv Yttrehus

Rolv Yttrehus

Rolv Berger Yttrehus is an American composer of contemporary classical music.He holds degrees from the University of Minnesota and University of Michigan and a Diploma from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He studied harmony with Nadia Boulanger and composition with Ross Lee Finney, Roger...

 and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

He died at the age of 88 in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

.

Style

His works written up to 1930 or so are more or less neoclassical

Neoclassicism (music)

Neoclassicism in music was a twentieth-century trend, particularly current in the period between the two World Wars, in which composers sought to return to aesthetic precepts associated with the broadly defined concept of "classicism", namely order, balance, clarity, economy, and emotional restraint...

 in style. Those written between 1930 and 1951 are more or less tonal

Tonality

Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...

 but harmonically complex. From the Solo Violin Sonata of 1953 on, he wrote almost exclusively in a serial

Serialism

In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

 style.

Major works

• Symphony No. 1
  Symphony No. 1 (Sessions)
  The Symphony No. 1 of Roger Sessions is a symphony in three movements, in E minor.The three movements are as follows:#Giusto#Largo#Allegro vivace...
  
   (1927)
• The Black Maskers Orchestral Suite (1928)
• Piano Sonata No. 1 (1930)
• Violin Concerto
  Violin Concerto (Sessions)
  Roger Sessions' Violin Concerto was composed between 1927 and 1935, and is scored for violin and orchestra .-History:The concerto was begun, at the suggestion of Serge Koussevitzky, in the summer of 1927—although the composer later postdated the beginning of this work to his years at the American...
  
   (1935)
• String Quartet No. 1 (1936)
• Duo for Violin and Piano (1942)
• From my Diary (Pages from a Diary) (1940)
• Piano Sonata No. 2
  Piano Sonata No. 2 (Sessions)
  Roger Sessions' Piano Sonata No. 2 was composed in 1946. It has three movements:#Allegro con fuoco #Lento #Misurato e pesante...
  
   (1946)
• Symphony No. 2
  Symphony No. 2 (Sessions)
  The Symphony No. 2 of Roger Sessions was begun in 1944 and completed in 1946.It is in four movements:#Molto agitato - Tranquillo e misterioso #Allegretto capriccioso...
  
   (1946)
• The Trial of Lucullus (1947), one-act opera
• String Quartet No. 2 (1951)
• Sonata for Solo Violin (1953)
• Idyll of Theocritus (1954)
• Piano Concerto (1956)
• Symphony No. 3
  Symphony No. 3 (Sessions)
  The Symphony No. 3 of Roger Sessions was written in 1957.It is in four movements:#Allegro grazioso e con fuoco#Allegro, un poco ruvido#Andante sostenuto e con affetto#Allegro con fuoco...
  
   (1957)
• String Quintet (1957 or 1957–58)
• Symphony No. 4
  Symphony No. 4 (Sessions)
  The Symphony No. 4 of Roger Sessions was composed in 1958.It has three movements:#Burlesque#Elegy#PastoraleIt was commissioned by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra for the Minnesota Centennial, and premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Antal Doráti on January 2, 1960.The second...
  
   (1958)
• Divertimento for Orchestra (1959)
• Montezuma
  Montezuma (opera)
  Montezuma is an opera in three acts by the American composer Roger Sessions, with an English libretto by Giuseppe Antonio Borgese that incorporates bits of the Aztec language, Nahuatl, as well as Spanish, Latin, and French.-Performance history:...
  
  (1935–63 or 1941–64), opera in three acts (libretto by Giuseppe Antonio Borgese
  Giuseppe Antonio Borgese
  Giuseppe Antonio Borgese was an Italian writer, journalist and literary critic.-Biography:Borgese was born in Polizzi Generosa, near Palermo...
  
  )
• Symphony No. 5
  Symphony No. 5 (Sessions)
  The Symphony No. 5 of Roger Sessions was commissioned in 1960 and completed in 1964. It was commissioned by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the first movement only was premiered by them in February 1964, the rest not being completed until that December.It is in three connected...
  
   (1964)
• Piano Sonata No. 3 (1965)
• Symphony No. 6
  Symphony No. 6 (Sessions)
  The Symphony No. 6 of Roger Sessions, a symphony written using the twelve-tone technique, was composed in 1966. It was commissioned by the state of New Jersey and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra....
  
   (1966)
• Six Pieces for Violoncello (1966)
• Symphony No. 7
  Symphony No. 7 (Sessions)
  The Symphony No. 7 of Roger Sessions was written in 1967.It is in three movements:#Allegro con fuoco#Lento e dolce#Allegro misuratoIt was written for the 150th anniversary of the University of Michigan The Symphony No. 7 of Roger Sessions was written in 1967.It is in three movements:#Allegro con...
  
   (1967)
• Symphony No. 8
  Symphony No. 8 (Sessions)
  The Symphony No. 8 of Roger Sessions was composed in 1968.It is a work in two movements lasting together about fourteen minutes:#Adagio e mesto#Allegro con brioNoteworthy in the context of Sessions' symphonies is the use of maracas in the first movement....
  
   (1968)
• Rhapsody for Orchestra (1970)
• Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, and Orchestra (1971)
• When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (1971)
• Concertino for Chamber Orchestra (1972)
• Five Pieces for Piano (1975)
• Symphony No. 9 (October 1978)
• Concerto for Orchestra (1981)
• Duo for Violin and Violoncello (1981), incomplete

Some works received their first professional performance many years after completion. The Sixth Symphony (1966) was given its first complete performance on March 4, 1977 by the Juilliard Orchestra in New York City.

The Ninth Symphony (1978), commissioned by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra

The Syracuse Symphony Orchestra was a 79 member orchestra located in Syracuse, NY. In its time it was the 43rd largest orchestra in the United States and performed a variety of programs including the Post-Standard Classics Series and M&T Bank Pops Series....

 and Frederik Prausnitz, was premiered on January 17, 1980 by the same orchestra conducted by Christopher Keene

Christopher Keene

Christopher Keene was an American conductor.Born in Berkeley, California, Keene studied at the University of California, Berkeley. Associated with the Spoleto Festival from 1968 , he was co-founder of the Spoleto Festival USA, where he was Music Director from 1977 to 1980...

.

Writings

• Sessions, Roger. Harmonic Practice. New York: Harcourt, Brace. 1951. LCCN 51008476.
• Sessions, Roger. Reflections on the Music Life in the United States. New York: Merlin Press. 1956. LCCN 56012976.
• Sessions, Roger. The Musical Experience of Composer, Performer, Listener. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1950, republished 1958.
• Sessions, Roger. Questions About Music. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1970, reprinted New York: Norton, 1971. ISBN 0-674-74350-4.
• Sessions, Roger. Roger Sessions on Music: Collected Essays, edited by Edward T. Cone. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-691-09126-9 (cloth) ISBN 0-691-10074-8 (pbk)

Sources

• Cone, Edward, ed. Roger Sessions on Music: Collected Essays. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-691-09126-9 and ISBN 0-691-10074-8.
• Olmstead, Andrea. Conversations with Roger Sessions. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987. ISBN 1-55553-010-9.
• Olmstead, Andrea. The Correspondence of Roger Sessions. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992. ISBN 1-55553-122-9.
• Olmstead, Andrea. Roger Sessions: A Biography. New York: Routledge, 2008. ISBN 978-0-415-97713-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-415-97714-2 (pbk.) ISBN 978-0-203-93147-9 (ebook)
• Olmstead, Andrea. "Sessions, Roger (Huntington)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
  
   and John Tyrrell
  John Tyrrell (professor of music)
  John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
  
  . London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001.
• Prausnitz, Frederik. Roger Sessions: How a "Difficult" Composer Got That Way. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-510892-2

External links

• The Roger Sessions Society
• Art of the States: Roger Sessions
• biographer/Andrea Olmstead contains a discography
• The Seymour Shifrin Papers at Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University Shifrin's papers include two MSS by Roger Sessions