Upcoming Performances September 2022 September 2023

September 16-18 Emerson Paramont Center, White Snakes Projects presents the opera Cosmic Cowboy

October 15 Rosa Theater Houghton Michigan KSO presents Unquiet Earth for Orchestra

Upcoming Performances September 2019-September 2020

September 13, 2019 National Sawdust, Brooklyn NY Lara Downes performs Music, Pink and Blue

October 12,  DelValle Chamber Music, Livermore CA, Jennifer Kloetzel and Robert Koenig premiere Cello Sonata

November 3^rd, Boston (TBD) Piano Vocal reading of opera, Cosmic Cowboy

January 12 Eugene, OR Delgani Quartet premieres Seventh String Quartet

January 14 Eugene, OR Delgani Quartet performs Seventh String Quartet

January 18 Salem, OR Delgani Quartet performs Seventh String Quartet

January 24, UCSB full concert of Elena Ruehr’s chamber music

March 1 Boston Symphony Orchestra Community Chamber Concert, Framingham, MA Five Dance Overtures

March 8 Boston Symphony Orchestra Community Chamber Concert, Roxbury, MA Five Dance Overtures

April 4 Cappella Clausura, Boston MA, performing In Time of Silver Rain

April 5 Cappella Clausura, Newton MA, performing In Time of Silver Rain

Selected Performances in 2018/2019 season

September 12, Third String Quartet, Quartet Nouveau, Prague

September 29, Lift, Radius Ensemble, Miriam Bolkosky, cello, Cambridge, MA

November 3, Sky Above Clouds, Peabody Modern Orchestra, Baltimore, MD

November 12, Prelude Variations, Ethan Filner, Cecily Ward, Waterloo, Canada

November 30, Ars Poetica, Clark University Concert Choir, Worcester, MA

December 8, Third String Quartet, The Arneis Quartet, MIT, Cambridge, MA

January 19, Piano Concerto, Heng-Jin Park, Cambridge, MA

January 20, multiple works, MTU Chamber Players, Houghton, MI

February 23, Music in Pink and Blue, Lara Downes, Kennedy Center, Washington, DC

February 26, Icarus, Lontano, London, England

February  28, multiple works, Darkwater Music Festival, Pembroke, NC

March 1, multiple works, Darkwater Music Festival, Pembroke, NC

March 16, Prelude Variations, Ethan Filner, Toronto, Canada

March 27, Prelude Variations, Ethan Filner, Annville, PA

Release of Six String Quartets

Review by AUDIOPHOLE AUDITION: https://www.audaud.com/elena-ruehr-six-string-quartets-cypress-borromeo-avie-naxos/

Some upcoming concerts in 2017/2018:

September 20, Bel Canto, Quartet Nouveau, Encinitas Library, San Diego, CA, 12 pm

September 23, A Supermarket in California, David Kravitz and the Arneis Quartet, Emmanuel Church, Boston, 8 and 10 pm

September 24, Bel Canto, Quartet Nouveau, San Diego, Ca

October 21, Piano Concerto, A Far Cry, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Boston, 4 pm

October 22, Piano Concerto, A Far Cry, The Gardner Museum, Boston, 1:30 pm

November 4, Red, Cecily Ward, MIT Chapel, 8 pm

November 15, Lift, Jennifer Kloetzal, 562 Sutter Street, San Francisco, 6:30pm

November 18, Lucy, Radius Ensemble, Pickman Hall, 8 pm

December 17, Lucy, Northeastern University, Fenway Center, 7:30 pm

February 23, Shadow Light, Kresge, MIT, 8 pm

March 10, Sky Above Clouds, Symphony Hall, Boston

April 7, Bel Canto, Mistral, Andover West Parish Church, 5 pm

April 8, Bel Canto, Mistral, Brookline, St. Paul’s Church, 5 pm

April 28, Eve, Cappella Clausura, Lindsay Chapel, Boston, 8 pm

April 29 Eve, Cappella Clausura, Elliot Church, Newton, 4 pm

May 5, Manhattan Trade School for Girls, Randolph-Macon Chamber Singers, Ashland Theater, VA

May 20, Ars Poetica: Rally, Musica Viva NY, All Soul’s Church, 5 pm

Workshop of Ruehr/Henderson new opera Crafting the Bonds, Killian Hall at MIT, June 11, 7 pm

The Worlds Revolve, for Donald Berman and the Borromeo String Quartet premieres at Rockport Chamber Music Festival on June 9, 2016.

WATCH FOR THREE NEW CD RELEASES COMING SOON, including The New Orchestra of Washington with Marcus Thompson playing Shadow Light, Quetzal Garden with Sarah Brady and Radius Ensemble, and a NEW ALL RUEHR string quartet CD, with the Cypress String Quartet
O’Keeffe Images CD release

Orchestral music of Elena Ruehr with

Jennifer Kloetzel, Cello

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project

Gil Rose, Conductor

Order it at: http://www.bmop.org/audio-recordings/elena-ruehr-okeeffe-images

Or online

Reviews of O’Keeffe Images

“Orchestral music of sweeping vistas and a strong pulse by an American composer.” Audiophile Audition

“The four orchestral works of composer Elena Ruehr that are assembled on this alluring disc by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project are striking for their combination of rhapsodic, almost sinful lushness and a robust force that keeps the effect from cloying. Her signature orchestrational move is to pull you in with the strings and then let the brass punch you in the gut, and it works every time — even when you know it’s coming. Even the overall course of the disc works that way. It opens with the aptly named “Shimmer,” an enticingly patterned work for string orchestra that establishes just how beautifully Ruehr can write when that’s her goal. Then come “Vocalissimus,” in which a pugnacious solo trumpet keeps weighing into the process, and “Cloud Atlas,” a winningly detailed treatment of the great David Mitchell novel, in which cellist Jennifer Kloetzel of the Cypress String Quartet takes a solo role. The title work, a triptych inspired by three of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, brings things to an expansive and evocative close.” — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

LIFT CD release

REVIEW OF LIFT FROM GRAMOPHONE

Increasingly well represented on disc, Boston-based Elena Ruehr (b1963) has maintained a steady chamber output – of which this selection of works from across 16 years (interestingly heard in reverse order) makes a positive case for her accessible yet never merely academic or reactionary idiom. Agilely combining trenchant virtuosity with keen lyricism, Lift (2013) is a telling study in cumulative momentum, while the Second Violin Sonata (2012) offers a pertinent take on the fast-slow-fast trajectory with its discreet jazz inflections – not least the finale’s Oscar Peterson homage. Klein Suite (2011) takes its cue from Bach’s unaccompanied violin music over its eloquent then energetic movements, whereas Prelude Variations (2008) draws on two preludes and fugues from the ‘48’ in a purposeful workout for viola and cello. In between comes Adrienne and Amy (2009), a ‘sonatina’ paying homage to composer Amy Beach and her biographer Adrienne Block in what is the deftest and most appealing piece on this disc. The Scarlatti Effect (1997) rounds off proceedings with its lively and resourceful take on the Baroque composer’s keyboard sonatas, as subtly integrated into a tensile single movement whose elements of ritornello ensure a steady focus through to the incisive close.

Thus is music written, above all, for the pleasure of the performers – and the four featured here duly ensure that the performances are never less than pleasurable. The recording leaves little to be desired in its clarity and perspective, and this disc can be warmly recommended to musicians searching for some worthwhile new repertoire.

ALL RUEHR CONCERT：

LIFT

Featuring Irina Muresanu, Jennifer Kloetzel and Sarah Bob

February 1, 2014    8 pm

Killian Hall, MIT

Summer Days/BMOP Premiere
January 17, 2014

The Providence Singers premiere “Bears”
Text by Adrienne Rich

April 26 and 27
http://www.providencesingers.org/

Cloud Atlas Kickstarter campaign begins!

PN Review of Averno

Read an article about the use of poetry and music in Averno by Reena Sastri in PN Review

http://www.pnreview.co.uk/

Averno CD is released!

Ruehr’s first release for Avie assembles vocal and choral works inspired by three distinct American poets – Louise Glück, Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes. The title work, Averno, is a cantata that sets 11 poems of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Glück’s collection of the same name, which is a retelling of the story of Demeter, goddess of the earth, and her daughter Persephone. Ruehr’s score deftly conjures ancient themes in a modern idiom. The miniatures Cricket, Spider, Bee paint a vivid, aural picture of Dickinson’s scenic natural world. The large scale GOSPEL CHA-CHA sets Langston Hughes’ expansive and socially critical late poetry, evoking African dances and drumming, and the Harlem Renaissance of the 1960s with improvisatory flair. The works are performed by acclaimed New York-based Trinity Choir under their dynamic Music Director Julian Wachner, and Trinity’s new music ensemble Novus NY. The superb soloists are soprano Marguerite Krull and baritone Stephen Salters.

Sixth String Quartet premiered

October 2   8PM Old Frist Chruch, San Francisco.

Friday November 9 2012 at 7:30PM BAM/PFA Gallery B,2626 Bancroft Way,Berkeley, CA

Review:

“After intermission, it was a Call & Response commission, Elena Ruehr’s 2012 String Quartet No. 6, this time in response to Mozart and, yet again, to Beethoven. The composer herself spoke before the performance, also citing Rochberg as an inspiration. Like a typical 18th- or 19th-century piece, this quartet features four completely different movements. The first is a rather matter-of-fact, marchlike affair, subtitled “The Sea,” which feels like a sailing song. The second movement, in eerie contrast, is sad and fearful, written for Todd Donovan, a friend and associate of both the Cypress Quartet and Ruehr, who was dying of cancer while the piece was being written. Donovan recently passed away. The third movement takes another sharp turn with sultry rhythms and a dancelike feel. The fourth movement is the strongest of them all, reaching the transcendental heights of the first two pieces on the program. The ending is a thrilling chase of upward gestures, alternating colorful and atonal dissonance with clear, straight-up scales for a rousing finish.”Click here for full review.

TenFourteen commissioning project with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players launches.

Read more here.