By Michael Hall
UCSB Music faculty members took to the stage of Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall last week to perform two world premiere compositions from composer Elena Ruehr.
Ruehr, who studied at the University of Michigan and Julliard, is a lecturer of music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Guggenheim Fellowship for the Creative Arts awardee. She and her husband attended the concert.
The faculty performers included violinist Ertan Torgul, violist Jonathan Moerschel, cellist Jennifer Kloetzel, and pianists Paul Berkowitz, Dr. Natasha Kislenko, and Robert Koenig.
Prior to the first downbeat, Kloetzel spoke about her friendship with Ruehr and the benefits of working with her. “This is a longtime friendship,” said Kloetzel, “and there’s something special about this friendship. And by working with living composers, we can understand how composers work.”
Ruehr addressing the crowd at Lotte Lehmann.
The first premiered composition, “Errinerung,” was commissioned by David Deveau, a fellow music lecturer at MIT. The piece, named for the German word for “remembrance,” is meant to mimic how you might hear famed Romantic pianist Franz Schubert from “a sort of dreamlike state.”
“Piano Quartet,” the second premiere, is a contrapuntal piece which places heavy emphasis on the interplay between the four instruments on stage - piano, violin, viola, and cello.
The piece, currently unnamed, was written for this specific concert. “These performers are fabulous,” Ruehr said. “And as you can tell I enjoy working with everyone here.”
With “Piano Quartet,” Ruehr hopes to challenge the tradition of Classical music. “I’m very interested in the continuity between chamber music of the past and keeping that tradition as part of the present,” she said. “Pushing the envelope here and there but also feeling like I’m a part of that canon.”
The rest of the program included other works written by Ruehr such as “Lift,” a piece for solo cello dedicated to Malala Yousafzai―the Pakistani women’s rights activist and Nobel laureate―and “Red,” a piece written for solo violin inspired by a pair of red cowboy boots owned by a friend of the composer.
Ruehr also taught private lessons, guest-lectured at several music courses at UCSB during her visit to Santa Barbara, and hosted an open rehearsal prior to the concert Friday night―all of which she enjoyed. “It’s good to work with such talented students here.”
Michael Hall is a fourth year Film and Media Studies major. He is a Web and Social Media Intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.