People | Faculty | Shulamit Ran

Shulamit Ran

Appointments:

Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor of Music

Artistic Director, Contempo
(the Contemporary Chamber Players)

Contact:

Office: Goodspeed 401
Phone: (773) 702-3072
Email: sran@uchicago.edu
Website:
http://www.presser.com/Composers/
info.cfm?Name=SHULAMITRAN

Photo: Edward Chick

Shulamit Ran, a native of Israel, began setting Hebrew poetry to music at the age of seven. By nine she was studying composition and piano with some of Israel’s most noted musicians, including composers Alexander Boskovich and Paul Ben-Haim, and within a few years she was having her works performed by professional musicians and orchestras. As the recipient of scholarships from both the Mannes College of Music in New York and the America Israel Cultural Foundation, Ran continued her composition studies in the United States with Norman Dello-Joio. In 1973 she joined the faculty of University of Chicago, where she is now the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Music. She lists her late colleague and friend Ralph Shapey, with whom she also studied in 1977, as an important mentor. 

In addition to receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1991, Ran has been awarded most major honors given to composers in the U.S., including two fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, grants and commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation at the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fromm Music Foundation, Chamber Music America, the American Academy and Institute for Arts and Letters, first prize in the Kennedy Center-Friedheim Awards competition for orchestral music, and many more.

Her music has been played by leading performing organizations including the Chicago Symphony under both Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez, the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph Von Dohnanyi in two U.S. tours, the Philadelphia Orchestra under Gary Bertini, the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and Gustavo Dudamel, the New York Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s under Yehudi Menuhin, the Baltimore Symphony, the National Symphony (in Washington D.C.), Contempo (the Contemporary Chamber Players) at the University of Chicago under both Ralph Shapey and Cliff Colnot, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Jerusalem Orchestra, the vocal ensemble Chanticleer, and various others.  Chamber and solo works are regularly performed by leading ensembles in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Between 1990 and 1997 she was Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, having been appointed for that position by Maestro Daniel Barenboim as part of the Meet-The-Composer Orchestra Residencies Program.  Between 1994 and 1997 she was also the fifth Brena and Lee Freeman Sr. Composer-in-Residence with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where her residency culminated in the performance of her first opera, “Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk)”. 

Ran served as Music Director of “Tempus Fugit”, the International Biennial for Contemporary Music in Israel in 1996, 1998 and 2000.  Since 2002 she is Artistic Director of Contempo (Contemporary Chamber Players of the University of Chicago).
  
She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, where she is now beginning a 3-year term as Vice President for Music, and of the American Academy of Arts and Science. The recipient of five honorary doctorates, her works are published by Theodore Presser Company and by the Israeli Music Institute and recorded on more than a dozen different labels.

Selected Works

The Show Goes On, Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, 2008
"Song and Dance", Duo for Saxophones and Percussion, 2007
Credo/Ani Ma'amin, for Twelve Voices, 2006
Fault Line for Large Ensemble, 2005-06
Under the Sun's Gaze (Concerto da Camera III), 2003-04
Violin Concerto, 2003
Supplications for Chorus and Orchestra, 2002
Voices, Concerto for a Flautist with Orchestra, 2000
Vessels of Courage and Hope for Orchestra, 1998
Soliloquy for Piano Trio, 1997
Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk), Opera in Two Acts, 1995-97
Legends for Orchestra, 1993, rev. 2001
Mirage for Five Players, 1990
Symphony, 1989-90
String Quartet No. 2 ("Vistas"), 1989
Concerto da Camera II, 1987
Concerto for Orchestra, 1986
String Quartet No. 1, 1984
Verticals for Piano, 1982
Excursions for Piano Trio, 1981
Apprehensions for Voice, Clarinet and Piano, 1979
O The Chimneys for Female Voice and Ensemble, 1969

For a complete listing of works see http://www.presser.com/Composers/info.cfm?Name=SHULAMITRAN