William Bolcom has always lived in a world of music. At 4 he was playing piano and composing; at 11 he was studying piano at the UW. He picked up his music degree here in 1958, and after graduate studies became a professor at the University of Michigan, where he has remained for 30 years.

But Bolcom is more than a professor. The winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Music, he is considered by many to be one of America’s greatest living composers. His achievements have earned him the Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus Award, an award given not for recent work but for a lifetime record. This is the highest honor the UW can bestow on a graduate.

A native of Western Washington, Bolcom grew up in a family that encouraged his talent but didn’t push him to perform as a child prodigy. He says he listened to all kinds of music, and he’s known for his ability to both write and perform all kinds of music. He’s credited, for example, with reviving ragtime in the 1970s by recording pieces by people like Scott Joplin. And on the other hand he’s composed the score for hit operas like McTeague and A View from the Bridge.

And Bolcom has found success on the concert stage as well. He and his wife, mezzo soprano Joan Morris, often tour together, performing American popular songs from early vaudeville to present-day Broadway.

It’s a hectic schedule, but at 64 Bolcom isn’t ready to retire. He says he has many more songs to write.

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