Shulamit Ran

about

Shulamit Ran (Hebrew: שולמית רן‎; born October 21, 1949 in Tel Aviv, Israel) is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony (1990) won her the Pulitzer Prize. In this regard, she was the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music, the first being Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983. Shulamit Ran is a longtime faculty member of the University of Chicago and has served as composer-in-residence with both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Lyric Opera. More recently she wrote a Violin Concerto (2003) for the Israeli violinist Ittai Shapira. Ran studied with Ralph Shapey and dedicated her Symphony to him. Many critics have commented on the combination of raw power and classical structure in Ran's work. Ran has written that she considers classical-era composer Ludwig van Beethoven her "compositional idol," and her work combines a taste for rigorous structural logic with a unique brand of "free atonality." “Shulamit Ran has never forgotten that a vital essence of composition is communication.” So ran the review in the Chicago Tribune following the premiere of Legends by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This sort of reaction is by no means unusual. Around the country, from Seattle to Baltimore to Houston, commentary on her music typically runs thus: “gloriously human”, and “compelling not only for its white-hot emotional content but for its intelligence and compositional clar

top songs

albums

The Music of Shulamit Ran

Women of Note

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Days of Awe and Rejoicing: Radiant Gems of Jewish Music

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Ran: Concerto da camera II, East Wind & Other Works

Shulamit Ran: Chamber Works

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For Lenny

Shulamit Ran

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Images for Solo Flute

Clarinet Solos, Duos, Trios

Music by Shulamit Ran

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American Canvas

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New Music from Bowling Green, Vol. 5

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