Ernest Bloch.
A creator of music of great spiritual expression,
Ernest Bloch was born on 24 July 1880 in Geneva, Switzerland. In
his native city, he studied violin with Louis Rey and composition
with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and later studied under Eugene Ysaye
and Francois Rasse in Brussels. Bloch’s principal training, however,
would be in Frankfurt with Iwan Knorr, who most influenced
the composer’s distinct musical personality. Bloch appropriated
established and novel musical elements into highly dramatic scores,
often influenced by philosophical, poetic, or religious themes.
A masterly composer of music for strings, Bloch wrote four string quartets, Schelomo-
-A Hebrew Rhapsody (for cello and orchestra), and A Voice in the Wilderness (for
orchestra and cello obbligato), which are deeply emotional works and rank among the
most distinguished achievements in the neo-classic and neo-romantic idiom of early
20th-century music. Bloch’s pupil Roger Sessions praised him for his special ability to
express “the grandeur of human suffering.” The successful premiere by the Boston
Symphony of Bloch’s Trois Poèmes Juifs in 1917 encouraged the composer to settle in
the United States. He soon assumed the directorship of the Cleveland Institute of Music
and later the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He also taught at the University of
California at Berkeley.
Bloch was distinguished in his lifetime by a long list of honors including honorary
membership in the Academia Santa Cecilia in Rome, the first Gold Medal in Music of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the New York Music Critics’ Circle Award for his
String Quartet No. 2, and the same award later for his Concerto Grosso No. 2 and String
Quartet No. 3. He was also the recipient of numerous honorary degrees.
COMPOSER
MACBETH
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Handel’s
Messiah
Britten’s
Simple Symphony
Lauridsen’s
Lux Aeternoa
Schubert’s
Mass in A-flat
A World of Music
THE APOLLO CHORUS OF CHICAGO
presents
Spring Concert – “International Voices”
