Her work has been described as “sumptuously scored and full of soaring melodies” by The New York Times, and “unspeakably gorgeous” by Gramophone! 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." Elena says her music that “the idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex.”
We’ll hear chamber music from MIT composer Elena Ruehr on today’s What’s New.
For Guggenheim Fellow composer Elena Ruehr the appeal of the string quartet "lies in the ability of four instruments to express an infinite range of emotional possibilities, to communicate across time." Ruehr's six quartets attest "to her enthusiasm for musical time-travel: echoes of Perotin, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvo?ák, Schoenberg and jazz are there, but the musical language is purely her own." This two cd set is now available from AVIE Records.
What’s New is a production of WBAA, a listener supported broadcast service of Purdue University.
