Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to
New YorkNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at 14, as a scholarship student at the
Mannes College of MusicMannes College The New School for Music is The New School university's music conservatory. While the university's main campus is located in Greenwich Village, New York City, Mannes maintains its main academic building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan....
. Her
Symphony (1990) won her the
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
. 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 ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
and has served as composer-in-residence with both the
Chicago Symphony OrchestraThe Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
and the Chicago Lyric Opera. More recently she wrote a
Violin Concerto (2003) for the Israeli violinist Ittai Shapira.
Ran studied with
Ralph ShapeyRalph Shapey was an American composer and conductor. He is well-known for his work as a composition professor at the University of Chicago, where he founded and directed the Contemporary Chamber Players...
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 BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
her "compositional idol," and her work combines a taste for rigorous structural logic with a unique brand of "free
atonalityAtonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
."
Her students include C. P. First.
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