Press

Ran draws you into the bleak, pained, uneasy imagery of the Plath poetry in a way that makes you feel at once assaulted, ennobled, and spiritually cleansed.

— Chicago Tribune

One should never use the term masterpiece for a work one has just heard for the first time. So let me say this: the force with which Ran’s Apprehensions…hit me on first hearing has been equaled only twice before by 20th century vocal works—by Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Britten’s Illuminations.

— Baltimore Sun

Ran, Israeli by birth and a dramatic philosopher by musical inclination, has produced a powerful setting of the poem Sylvia Plath wrote in the last year before her suicide. Scored for soprano, clarinet and piano, the four movements explore the subtleties of a disturbed mind contemplating death and move from passivity through anger and terror to the final loneliness.

— The Washington Post

Shulamit Ran’s Between Two Worlds, given its world premiere in Chicago in June, may be the first Dybbuk opera to gain a foothold in the repertory.

…Ran’s Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk) … …is the most powerful new music-theater piece to emerge from Lyric’s composer-in-residence program and just might be the one that will last. …Ran’s sophisticated music drives the drama rather than merely illustrating it…

— Opera News, December 1997,
lead article of “In Review: From Around the World”

“Between Two Worlds” Powerful

Between Two Worlds [The Dybbuk]… …is strong stuff… …Ran drew upon everything from faux-Hassidic lament to creepy Bartokian slithers, conventional arioso and spoken word, fusing these diverse elements with her usual craft and sophistication… …she writes with remarkable assurance for voices. …Charles Kondek worked minor miracles in pruning, reworking and distilling a talky four-act play into a libretto that clearly fired Ran’s musical imagination. …With amplified and prerecorded voices echoing through the theater, and prayer-shawl-clad Wandering Spirits haunting the spooky recesses of Korogodsky’s semi-abstract stage, the opera’s two worlds–the spiritual and the profane–merged in a rather wonderful way…

— Chicago Tribune

Ran’s vision fulfilled in premiere at Lyric

Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk), Shulamit Ran’s first opera… …is an impressive piece on several levels. …it has the vivid orchestral color and highly charged vocal writing so typical of Ran, winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for music. …Ran’s score ranged easily from cheery klezmer-shaded tunes to austere but compelling love duets. …With its mythic characters and theatrical sweep, Ansky’s tale of lovers separated in life but united in death belongs to the 19th century’s grandly classical opera and ballet tradition. Khonnon, sung with satin-voiced ardor by Matthew Polenzani, was as love-obsessed as any Swan Lake prince or bel-canto hero. Mary Jane Kania’s Leya, chilling in her mad scene, was a kindred spirit to ballet’s Giselle and Donizetti’s Lucia. But Ran’s opera is unmistakably a 20th century work, though anyone expecting unrelenting dissonance or constantly high decibel levels would be disappointed. Between Two Worlds is above all a compelling story, not a polemic for a given musical style…

— Chicago Sun-Times
(Mary Jane Kania has since adapted the stage name Maria Kanyova. — SR)

…her orchestra writing is the real glory of this opera. …Wonderful colors emerge from the pit. There are conventional set pieces, spoken words. and amplified voice (for the Dybbuk). Leitmotifs and musical themes are assembled with great sophistication…

— New Music Connoisseur

…This was Ran’s first opera, but her writing for voice is every bit as colorful as her orchestral works heard here in Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances. …Under the conductor Arthur Fagen, the orchestra… … easily negotiated Ran’s brilliantly virtuosic score without overwhelming the singers. …Both singers brought beautiful sound and astonishing vocal facility to Ran’s ecstatic, florid music for the two lovers. …Jonathan Eaton… Danila Korogodsky… and… Christine A. Solger produced a commendable production for this effective new work.

— Opera (England), January 1998

…Ran’s score is formidable. Resisting the soft, meditative trends of the 90s, she sticks with a language as mercurially free as atonality but uses dramatic gestures that ground the ear in the familiar…

— USA Today

German translations by Christian Tagger

Spiritual Love in Opera

…The opera delivers. …the music lends itself extraordinarily well to dramatic interpretation. It is cleverly orchestrated, generally with a free-tonality, though with appropriate references to Klezmer and liturgical music. Shulamit Ran has succeeded in writing an impressive synthesis in which she gives full vocal lines to the singers – in contrast to the philosophy of so many contemporary German composers. …this opera received long ovations, with cheering. New Productions of Between Two Worlds – The Dybbuk are strongly recommended as Ms. Ran and her librettist have given something rare to contemporary music theater: a work of substance at the highest musical level, which shuns banalities yet speaks to the ear of the audience. This happy combination is rare in contemporary music theater…

— Neue Westfalische (Bielefeld, Germany)

Shulamit Ran’s opera The Dybbuk successful in Bielefeld: Absorbing culture of mystical Eastern Judaism (Headline). …extremely successful premiere of the opera The Dybbuk by Shulamit Ran… …Her opera is a great musical achievement… the new music of this ‘cultural theatrical testament’ was excellently played by the Philharmonic Orchestra under Geoffrey Moull’s engaging and rhythmical direction. A CD recording would be highly desirable…

— Westfalen-Blatt

…The music of Shulamit Ran, for many years Composer-in-Residence of the Chicago Symphony, is alive with a subtle mixture of melodic material, both dancing and lamenting Klezmer-motives, iridescent clusters and folklore – but this is also a score that always allows the soloists to sing effortlessly. She works tonally and atonally and expertly illuminates the story with leitmotives. Geoffrey Moull conducts this wonderful music with rhythmic precision, enjoying the ‘foreign’ sounds, but with the orchestral transparency necessary to always allow the voices to shine through…

— Opernwelt (Germany)

…The music under the baton of Geoffrey Moull, with tonal, atonal and spiritual elements, impresses with its strength of expression. …The orchestral accompaniment plays ecstatic accents and at the same time sets the rhythm for the impressive vocal lines. On top of this, there are elements of folklore and musical passages of the Jewish liturgy. Between Two Worlds is an inspiring opera… A moving experience!

— Stadtblatt

…Shulamit Ran has composed a remarkable opera…

— Westfalische Rundschau

…Shulamit Ran has composed this love story with strong expressive sounds that equally impress with both the horror of possession and great emotions…

— Munstersche Zeitung

…A fascinating opera evening…

— Westfalischer Anzeiger

Concerto for Orchestra (1986) is big in musical scope and gesture, big in the technical demands it makes of the modern symphony orchestra… Ran is a composer whose music lives intensely in the late 20th Century, mindful of tradition but possessed by a fiercely lyrical voice all its own. She is a dramatist who happens to work with clashing, coalescing sonorities rather than with actors, but her music is no less theatrical for that. She gives her instrumentalists all sorts of rewarding, virtuosic things to do even if her orchestral concerto is not primarily about virtuosity. Did Ran perhaps unconsciously have the punchy brilliance of this orchestra in mind when she wrote this commanding score? It certainly seemed that way...

— John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune 

The work is essentially lyric-dramatic in spirit…This is music that clearly repays careful study. It has substance, and it is not afraid to be adventurous.

— Chicago Sun-Times

…When Ran learned that the first performance of her work should take place in Nuremberg… …her first association to Nuremberg were the Nuremberg rally, the Nuremberg trials and the treacherous race laws. Ran’s 30-minute-piece reflects those in a very poetic, musically condensed, timeless and moving way.

‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ asks Cain. …Ran draws a parallel between the biblical incident and the systematic genocide of the Jews in a very artistic, subtle way.

…Smitten silence, then thunderous applause.

— Nürnberger Nachrichten

…The Tel-Aviv-born composer now living in Chicago and Pulitzer Prize-winner connected choir and saxophone quartet in a very refined and impressive way. She made the saxophones take either orchestra-function or made them part of the polyglottal declaiming choir. The expressive developments of the composition faded into a calm choral in the end. Great ovations for the attendant composer and both ensembles.

— Nürnberger Zeitung

…An unusual ION night: saxophones played Bach, Pärt, Glass and especially Shulamit Ran from Israel. …The world premiere of her piece ‘das was geschah/ that which happened’ dealt with the Holocaust and comprised words of Paul Celan, Dan Pagis and the Bible into a huge cosmos of sound and timbres by means of choral speech, vocalises, spoken word and passionate saxophone accompaniment.

— Bayerische Staatszeitung

...an astonishingly powerful piece.

— Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine

Suspenseful and emotionally charged… Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory gives the impression of something written in white heat, as if projecting the mentality of one who had no time for anything but the truth, as time itself ran out… it expresses the unmistakable emotional arc that parallels the German-Jewish experience of [Felix] Nussbaum’s era, from relative normalcy through intimidation, gothic absurdity and shock, leading to a grave contest between terror and resolve, and a final catharsis of extraordinary sadness and impact.

— Nancy Malitz, Classical Voice North America

Ran’s work was radiant from the French horn opening solo to the spectacular percussion cadenza…This is a work that will reward each new listening.

—  The Washington Post

…an emotional, fast-flowing, exciting, dramatic work. …has the stamp of genius—the quality that distinguishes a masterpiece from merely competent workmanship

— Robert C. Marsh, Chicago Sun Times,
(quoted by Joseph McLillan in the Washington Post) 

…clear instrumental manner allows her to weave some tight musical ideas without letting her listeners miss any details, or lose the thread of her argument…it is music to exemplify an ideal — dramatic, colorful, clearly directed.

— Philadelphia Inquirer 

The Symphony, which won her the Pulitzer award…is immediately notable for its energy. It has a thrust to the thematic ideas that sets her phrases moving over a compelling pulse.

— Chicago Sun-Times

…virtuosic enough to qualify as a high-wire act, although its most distinctive feature was its strong, melodic emotionalism, from lingering melodies to big, difficult climaxes… Mr. Shapira played it with conviction, through to its beautiful, singing finish.

— Anne Midgette, The New York Times

A remarkably grateful and graceful vehicle, it explores the instrument's expressive range with idiomatic sensitivity for 20 taut minutes.  Shapira played it with silken tone and gutsy bravado.

— Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times

CONCERT PIECE FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA

Ran’s Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra is not a lengthy work, but it packs quite a wallop…The orchestration is imaginative and the piano part is extremely brilliant, with several big cadenzas, much rapid, scampering, highly percussive passage work…This piece, though short, is large in emotional scale…the extroverted quality of this vivid piece won for it a warm reception last night.

— Robert Finn, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

CONCERTO DA CAMERA I

Woodwind quintets everywhere should be eternally grateful to her for producing a work so refreshingly free of the cliches of the genre.

— John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune

DOUBLE VISION

…a complex and ingenious work that makes a very positive impression through the pure vitality of its content and the immediate effect of its strong writing…

— Chicago Sun-Times

EXCURSIONS

Every measure…is charged with dramatic intensity…Forceful, compelling, beautifully wrought music: here is a new piece one would very much like to encounter again.

— Chicago Tribune

FANTASY VARIATIONS for Solo Cello:

…a score of remarkable beauty, passion and formal clarity, and one that any cellist would be glad to learn.

— Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

INSCRIPTIONS for Solo Violin

...began with a burst of fierce agitation suggesting Paganini on speed, segued to a Rondino built around scampering pizzicati and ended with a shadowed surge of melody that spiraled to poetic heights. Violinists are always complaining about the dearth of good modern solo pieces; Ran has given them one. Inscriptions is a score of varied and serious substance, grateful to perform and rewarding to listen to…

— John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune

LEGENDS FOR ORCHESTRA

Shulamit Ran has never forgotten that a vital essence of composition is communication. Her new work Legends...  ...communicates powerfully and directly...  ...the third and final commission honoring the centennials of the CSO and the University of Chicago, it is arguably the strongest of the commissions, and one hopes it finds the wide public it deserves. Legends means to evoke a mystical, timeless aura, and it achieves that timeless quality without resource to the obvious orchestral effects such evocation would invite. Ran’s ideas and gestures carry within them the seeds of their own development, and she compels us to follow their evolution through a two-movement quasi sonata lasting about 20 absorbing minutes.

— John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune 

MIRAGE

Typically of her music, this is a highly expressive score…compelling not only for its white-hot emotional content but for its intelligence and compositional clarity…

— Seattle Times 

O THE CHIMNEYS

…a work of uncompromising brilliance…gripping drama in razor-sharp musical responses…riveting…

— Los Angeles Herald Examiner 

PRIVATE GAME

an uncommonly lyrical and passionate duet for cello and clarinet

— Nicholas Kenyon, The New Yorker

SILENT VOICES

…intensely expressive… A poignant cello melody opened the colorful, communicative piece, which peaked at a heartfelt intensity, woven through with tart writing for brass and winds.

— Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times

STRING QUARTET NO. 2 ("VISTAS")

…the four-movement Vistas turned out to be an important discovery—full of anguished unisons and mysterious, keening solos that finally coalesce into music that is intense, cathartic and beautiful. The ideas are forcefully stated and sharply contrasted, set forth in clear textures and resonant timbres that reveal a deep understanding of the medium’s expressive possibilities.

— John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune 

SUPPLICATIONS

…a bold setting of Psalms texts in Hebrew, complete with crashing cymbals, surging choral outbursts and hauntingly sustained harmonies, yet always direct, sonorous and impeccably tasteful.

— Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times 

THREE FANTASY MOVEMENTS (transcription by Cliff Colnot)

It's a big, important work, right down to the mock-Bach finale.

— John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune 

VERTICALS FOR PIANO

…a grand, passionate, Lisztian composition, rhapsodic and shapely…

— Andrew Porter, The New Yorker

VESSELS OF COURAGE AND HOPE

Composer’s masterful anniversary work deserves many anniversaries of its own

…a distinguished work by one of our most gifted composers.

— Baltimore Sun  

VIOLIN CONCERTO

…virtuosic enough to qualify as a high-wire act, although its most distinctive feature was its strong, melodic emotionalism, from lingering melodies to big, difficult climaxes… Mr. Shapira played it with conviction, through to its beautiful, singing finish.

— Anne Midgette, The New York Times

A remarkably grateful and graceful vehicle, it explores the instrument's expressive range with idiomatic sensitivity for 20 taut minutes.  Shapira played it with silken tone and gutsy bravado.

— Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times

YEARNING

Shulamit Ran's Yearning is the composition which impressed this listener the most. It is rich and complex in thought and structure while moving one deeply as well. …Interestingly, Ran notes that 'composing a piece about love, beauty and humanity is a problematic proposition.' Yet she succeeds admirably.

— The Music Connoisseur