Works performed by Earplay:

Blackberries

With work described as "sumptuously scored and full of soaring melodies" (The New York Times), and "unspeakably gorgeous" (Gramophone), American composer Elena Ruehr is known for her lyrical and rhythmically vibrant music. Her music has an organic, breathing flow, derived from its origin in the movement of the body and the vitality of the natural world; her melodies often incorporate details and figurations of improvised performance, sometimes with exotic touches. Ruehr says of her music "the idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex."

An award-winning faculty member at MIT since 1992, she is a Guggenheim fellow, has been a fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, and was the first composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) from 2000-2005, where the orchestra premiered her pieces Shimmer, Sky Above Clouds, and Ladder to the Moon, as well as her acclaimed opera Toussaint Before the Spirits in collaboration with Opera Boston (Arsis Records, 2005). BMOP also released a recording of her complete orchestral works (O’Keeffe Images) in 2014.

Ruehr's oeuvre includes compositions for chamber ensemble, orchestra, chorus, wind ensemble, instrumental solo, opera, dance and silent film. Her six string quartets have been championed by the Cypress, Biava, Borromeo, Lark, ROCO, and Shanghai string quartets. In addition, she has written works for Cantata Singers, Roomful of Teeth, the Metamorphosen Chamber Ensemble, the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Rockport Chamber Music Society, The Richmond Philharmonic, Lorelei, and many others. She has also written two scores for silent films: Manhattan Trade School for Girls and Deschutes Driftwood.

In addition to her work with BMOP, her recordings include Lift (Avie Records, 2015), Averno (Avie Records, Trinity Choir, 2012), How She Danced: String Quartets of Elena Ruehr (Cypress String Quartet, 2010), and Jane Wang considers the dragonfly (Albany, various artists, 2009). Ruehr’s pieces are often inspired or suggested by work from other artistic spheres, and she is known for her collaborations with the writers Louise Glück, Elizabeth Alexander, Margaret Atwood, Ann Patchett, Gretchen Henderson and Adrienne Rich, among others.

Her website is elenaruehr.org.