Shulamit Ran
Ms. Ran's new work was commissioned for the 2008-2009 season as part of Concertante's One Plus Five Project, and was performed on Saturday, March 14, 2008 at the Fourier Hall at College of Notre Dame (Baltimore, MD) ,on Sunday March 15, 2008 at the Rose Lehrman Arts Center (Harrisburg, PA) and on Monday, March 16, 2008 at Merkin Hall (New York City).
Shulamit Ran, a native of Israel, began setting Hebrew
poetry to music at the age of seven. By nine she was studying composition and piano
with some of Israel's most noted musicians, including composers Alexander Boskovich
and Paul Ben-Haim, and within a few years she was having her works performed by
professional musicians and orchestras. In 1973 she joined the faculty of University
of Chicago, where she is now the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor
in the Department of Music.
In addition to receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1991, Ran has been awarded most major
honors given to composers in the U.S., including two fellowships from the Guggenheim
Foundation, grants and commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation at the Library
of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Chamber Music America, among
many others.
Her music has been played by leading performing organizations including the Chicago
Symphony under both Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez, the Cleveland Orchestra
under Christoph Von Dohnanyi, the Philadelphia Orchestra under Gary Bertini, the
Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and Gustavo Dudamel, and the New York Philharmonic.
Between 1990 and 1997 she was Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
having been appointed for that position by Maestro Daniel Barenboim as part of the
Meet-The-Composer Orchestra Residencies Program. Between 1994 and 1997 she was also
the fifth Brena and Lee Freeman Sr. Composer-in-Residence with the Lyric Opera of
Chicago, where her residency culminated in the much-acclaimed performance of her
first opera, "Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk)."
She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, where she
is now beginning a 3-year term as Vice President for Music, and of the American
Academy of Arts and Science. The recipient of five honorary doctorates, her works
are published by Theodore Presser Company and by the Israeli Music Institute
and recorded on more than a dozen different labels
Notes to Lyre of Orpheus
This particular commission was made with the goal of giving center-stage to the ensemble’s first cello, a choice I was especially grateful for, not only because it features Zvi Plesser, the outstanding Israeli cellist, but also because it gave me an opportunity to highlight an instrument for which, from a very early stage in my life, I have felt a special affinity. The cello’s “soul”, so naturally combining passion and lyricism, has always touched me in a special way.
As sometimes happens, naming the piece was the final act in the process of creation. Once titled, though, I found myself looking through the piece with a mixture of delight and astonishment –the narrative of this almost iconic mythological story of love and loss seems as one entirely plausible, and to my mind convincing, way to trace the unfolding of the musical events. Of course, the music was written with no such tale (or any tale, for that matter) in mind. But perhaps some stories are emblematic of so much that is part of our lives and psyches, of our desires, fears and wishes. Orpheus, whose longing for Eurydice recognizes no boundaries of heaven and hell… Love regained, then forever lost… Orpheus’ lyre intoning his sorrowful yearning…
Lyre of Orpheus, approximately fifteen minutes in length, composed in late 2008, is intermittently songful, caressing, passionate, pained, ferocious, longing. The instrumentation consists of 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos, the first of which is the soloist/protagonist, the second notable for having its lowest string tuned down a third to achieve extra lower notes.
