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CIM Orchestra: Steven Smith conducts music by Shulamit Ran (January 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

RAN-ShulamitIn a post-intermission conversation with CIM composition professor Keith Fitch last Wednesday evening, January 27 in Kulas Hall, visiting composer Shulamit Ran showered praise on guest conductor Steven Smith and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. They had just assumed the considerable challenges of performing her Legends and Violin Concerto, and she found that impressive. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d live to hear both of those pieces on the same program,” she said. [Read more…]

CIM New Music:
a conversation with Shulamit Ran
(second of two articles)

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by Mike Telin

RAN-Shulamit2From the time she was eight years old, Shulamit Ran aspired to be one thing: a composer. In an interview with the Chicago Reader the Israeli-born Pulitzer Prize-Winner recalled that she began to write melodies at the encouragement of her piano teacher.

“My teacher sent some of those melodies to a local radio station,” she says,  “and they ended up being performed on the radio by a children’s choir. It is a vivid recollection — I was eight at the time and away at summer camp; there we all were, the kids and myself, all sitting around a large radio listening to my music coming out of it. That was a revelation for me, because it was the first time that I had the sense my music could live outside of me. What I had made up now had its own, separate existence. It gave me such pleasure and it was a very special feeling, and I knew that I wanted to keep doing this. Although all kinds of other things have always interested me, I’ve never wanted to do anything else but compose ever since.”  

Next week, the Cleveland Institute of Music will play host to the celebrated composer during a three-day residency. [Read more…]

CIM New Music:
Keith Fitch talks about Shulamit Ran
(first of two articles)

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by Mike Telin

Ran-ShulamitNortheast Ohio audiences are in for a treat next week when the Cleveland Institute of Music plays host to celebrated composer Shulamit Ran for a three-day residency. On Tuesday, January 26 at 4:30 pm, the Pulitzer Prize-Winner will discuss her music in Studio 113. The event is free and open to the public. The following evening at 8:00 pm in Kulas Hall, guest conductor Steven Smith will lead the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra in a concert that will include Ran’s Legends and Violin Concerto featuring Laurie Smukler as soloist. The program will also include Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question.

“Shulamit is fantastic in every way,” Keith Fitch, who heads the Composition Department and holds the Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Chair in Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, said during a recent telephone conversation. “She’s had such a long and distinguished career as a composer, teacher, and advocate for new music. She’s so good with students, and she’s a great mentor and role model.” Ran recently retired from academia, having taught at the University of Chicago since 1973.

“I’ve always admired Shulamit’s music so much. Not only is it beautifully crafted, it’s also emotionally powerful, and so engaging. There’s this fearless quality to her music that I really love.” [Read more…]

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