William Masselos plays Mayer & Rudhyar

William Masselos, piano; Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Kenneth Schermerhorn, conductorBorn in New York City (November 18, 1925), William Mayer entered Yale University with the notion of being a writer and graduated (1949) with equal affinities for music and language. A tilt toward music became evident as Mayer continued his training at Juilliard and the Mannes College of Music, studying with Roger Sessions and Felix Salzer, and later with Otto Luening and Izler Solomon.Mayer’s versatility is manifest in his ongoing interest in all kinds of music. His catalogue includes three stage works in addition to A Death in the Family, and a variety of orchestral, chamber, choral, and vocal works. Among Mayer’s works for young people is Hello World! which was recorded with Eleanor Roosevelt as narrator, the ballet The Snow Queen and the opera One Christmas Long Ago.“The characteristic features of my music are derived from speech. My music is actually a speech; the consonants and vowels of the ‘wor