MIT Music Faculty

Music Faculty and Academic Staff

Composer in residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project since September 2000, Elena Ruehr (ruehr@mit.edu) has received commissions and performances by the Borremeo String Quartet, the Shanghai String Quartet, the Metamorphosen Chamber Ensemble, the Cincinnati Symphony, and the New York Youth Symphony, among others. She has written a number of commissions for international award winning baritone Stephen Salters, including Lullabies and Spring Songs, Gospel Cha Cha (for baritone, chorus and orchestra, a commission from Plymouth Music of Minneapolis) and Song of the Silkie (for baritone and string quartet, a commission from the Rockport Music Festival). Currently, Dr. Ruehr is collaborating with novelist/librettist Madison Smartt Bell and choreographer Nicola Hawkins on an opera for Stephen Salters that will be premiered at the Opera Unlimited Festival (produced by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Boston Academy of Music) in February 2003. A CD of her work, Shimmer, is available on Albany Records. Dr. Ruehr teaches in the music department at MIT where she received the Institute Wide Baker Undergraduate Teaching award in 1995.

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