Michael Colgrass (1932-2019) began his musical career as a jazz drummer in Chicago. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1954 with a degree in performance and composition. He served two years as timpanist in the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart, Germany and then spent 11 years supporting his composing as a free-lance percussionist in New York City at famous music venues with numerous ballet, opera, and jazz ensembles. He organized the percussion sections for Gunther Schuller’s recordings and concerts, as well as for premieres of new works by John Cage, Elliott Carter, Edgard Varese, and many others.
Colgrass won a 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Déjà vu, which was commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic. He also received an Emmy Award in 1982 for a PBS documentary, Soundings: The Music of Michael Colgrass. He has been awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships, A Rockefeller Grant, First Prize in the Barlow and Sudler International Wind Ensemble Competitions, and a 1988 Jules Leger Prize for Chamber Music. Among his later works are Crossworlds (2002), Pan Trio, Side by Side (2007), and Zululand (2010). Colgrass also authored the narrative/exercise book, My Lessons With Kumi as well as Adventures of an American Composer. He also lectured on personal development and gave workshops all over the world.
Three major orchestral works by Michael were issued shortly before he died as a CD from Boston Modern Orchestra Project with the title work “Side by Side” with soloist Joanne Kong, as well as “The Schubert Birds,” and “Letter from Mozart.”
