Roger Sessions
Roger Sessions (28 December 1896 - 16 March 1985) was an American composer, critic and teacher of music.Born in Brooklyn, New York to a wealthy family, Sessions studied music at Harvard University 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 under Horatio Parker and Ernest Bloch before teaching at Smith College. His first major compositions were made while travelling Europe in his mid twenties and early thirties with his wife.
Returning to the USA in 1933, he taught at Princeton University until retiring in 1965, although he continued to teach on a part-time basis at the Juilliard School until 1983.
His major works include:
- Symphony #1 (1927)
- The Black Maskers Orchestral Suite (1928)
- Piano Sonata #1 (1930)
- Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1935)
- String Quartet #1 (1936)
- Duo for Violin and Piano (1942)
- From my Diary (1940)
- Piano Sonata #2 (1946)
- Symphony #2 (1946)
- The Trial of Lucullus (1947), A one act opera
- String Quartet #2 (1951)
- Sonata for Solo Violin (1953)
- Idyll of Theocritus (1954)
- Piano Concerto (1956)
- Symphony #3 (1957)
- Symphony #4 (1958)
- String Quintet (1958)
- Divertimento for Orchestra (1959)
- Montezuma (1963), An opera in three acts
- Symphony #5 (1964)
- Piano Sonata #3 (1965)
- Symphony #6 (1966)
- Six Pieces for Violoncello (1966)
- Symphony #7 (1967)
- Symphony #8 (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 #9 (1978)
- Concerto for Orchestra (1981)
- Duo for Violin and Violoncello (1981), incomplete