ELENA RUEHR BIO

Called a “composer to watch” Elena Ruehr’s vocal, orchestral, chamber and film music is “Stunning...beautifully lighted by [a] canny instinct for knowing when and how to vary key, timbre, and harmony” (Richard Buell, The Boston Globe, 2003). Currently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, Dr. Ruehr is writing a Cantata based on Louise Glück’s most recent award-winning book of poetry, Averno, for her long time collaborator, baritone Stephen Salters. Dr. Ruehr is a composer of opera, orchestral music, chamber music and film.

Her opera, Toussaint Before the Spirits, available on CD through Arsis Records, was called “impressive… an illuminating historical musical fantasy” (Joshua Rosenblum, Opera News August 2007), and its premiere “had the audience on its feet, cheering, whistling, and applauding… compelling, emotional, theatrical….takes us back to the beginnings of the art, and to one of the first great operas, Gluck's ''Orfeo'' (Richard Dyer, Boston Globe, 2003).

Dr. Ruehr is especially interested in writing for string quartet, in part because of her close working relationship with the award-winning, San Francisco-based Cypress Quartet. Her Fourth String Quartet has been described as “music with heart and ...a forceful sense of character and expression” (The Washington Post November, 2007). Her Third String Quartet is “an astounding success, conveying an emotional directness the audience could easily grasp, yet still holding musical complexities that should make it a performance staple in the quartet repertory” (Keith Powers, Boston Sunday Herald, 2002). Her first work to receive national recognition, including an ASCAP award, was her First String Quartet (1988). In a review of a performance by the Shanghai Quartet, Josiah Fisk of the Boston Herald wrote in 1995: “there’s no mistaking the profusion of ideas, the adroitness of technique and the restlessness of spirit that permeate this music.” A recording of her string quartets performed by the Cypress Quartet will be available in 2009.

Among her several orchestral works, Shimmer has received the most acclaim. Commissioned by the Metamorphosen Chamber Ensemble, it is available through Albany Records or on iTunes. According to the American Record Guide Shimmer “brings joy to the listener” and continues to receive performances and radio play worldwide. Ruehr’s interest in orchestral writing also led to her serving as composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project from 2000-2005. Her early orchestral works include awards from the Cincinnati Symphony, the Omaha Symphony, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

In film, Ruehr recently completed a score for the 1913 documentary The Manhattan Trade School for Girls. The music “catapulted [the film] into the sublime…” (Bruce Bennett, the Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities). The work is part of of the National Film Archives’ Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film and can be obtained through www.filmpreservation.org. Curator Patrick G. Loughney said that Ruehr’s score “Does exactly what music for films of the silent era should do, which is sustain a film, gently lift it off the ground, and hold it in the air…”

Dr. Ruehr (b. 1963) studied music composition at the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School. She teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.