Elena Ruehr's latest CD, O'Keeffe Images, with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, is reviewed in the latest Audiophile Audition:
Orchestral music of sweeping vistas and a strong pulse by an American composer
Published on April 17, 2015
When Elena Ruehr (b. 1963) received her musical education (University of Michigan and The Juilliard School) in the late 1980s, melody wasn’t even considered as a part of modern music theory classes. Fortunately, one of her teachers—George Balch Wilson—recognized her gift for it. Now she sees melody as “the most complex and human of musical experiences.” Raised in a family of amateur musicians (her mother sang folk music and early jazz standards), she learned the piano at age five. Her passion as a dancer infuses her music with a distinctive rhythmic pulse. There’s sense of logic in her music: “the idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex,” she states. Accordingly, her music often expands from short motives whose repetition and variation create an underlying design. She draws her musical inspiration from literature, art and non-western music.... MORE
