Biography
Composer Shulamit Ran established herself as a leading figure in contemporary American music through frequent performances of her works by orchestras and chamber ensembles across the country. In addition to her creative output, she earned recognition as a teacher and became only the second woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize in composition.
Born on October 21, 1949, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Ran developed an early fascination with Jewish cantorial music broadcast by her father. By age seven she had begun composing her own settings of Hebrew poetry. She received initial composition training in Israel from Paul Ben-Haim and Alexander Boskovich before traveling to the United States at fourteen on scholarship to attend the Mannes College of Music in New York. Although she has continued to appear as a pianist in Israel, she has resided in the United States ever since. Her composition studies proceeded with Norman Dello Joio and Ralph Shapey, while Elliott Carter’s music exerted a further influence; on the piano she worked with Nadia Reisenberg and Dorothy Taubman. As a skilled performer she frequently presented her own compositions in recital.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra commissioned her orchestral score Legends in 1992 to celebrate the simultaneous centennials of the orchestra and the University of Chicago. Her music has reached major stages through performances by the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Israel Philharmonic. Chamber music constitutes the largest portion of her catalog, with interpreters including the Lark Quartet, the Peabody Trio, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Roughly thirty of her pieces have been recorded, among them Grand Rounds, which appeared on the Grossman Ensemble’s first album, Fountain of Time, in 2020.
Ran joined the University of Chicago composition faculty in 1973 and remained until her retirement in 2015, teaching students such as Melinda Wagner, Suzanne Sorkin, and Jorge Liderman. In 1991 she received the Pulitzer Prize for her Symphony of 1990, becoming the second woman to earn the award following Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983.
Born on October 21, 1949, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Ran developed an early fascination with Jewish cantorial music broadcast by her father. By age seven she had begun composing her own settings of Hebrew poetry. She received initial composition training in Israel from Paul Ben-Haim and Alexander Boskovich before traveling to the United States at fourteen on scholarship to attend the Mannes College of Music in New York. Although she has continued to appear as a pianist in Israel, she has resided in the United States ever since. Her composition studies proceeded with Norman Dello Joio and Ralph Shapey, while Elliott Carter’s music exerted a further influence; on the piano she worked with Nadia Reisenberg and Dorothy Taubman. As a skilled performer she frequently presented her own compositions in recital.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra commissioned her orchestral score Legends in 1992 to celebrate the simultaneous centennials of the orchestra and the University of Chicago. Her music has reached major stages through performances by the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Israel Philharmonic. Chamber music constitutes the largest portion of her catalog, with interpreters including the Lark Quartet, the Peabody Trio, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Roughly thirty of her pieces have been recorded, among them Grand Rounds, which appeared on the Grossman Ensemble’s first album, Fountain of Time, in 2020.
Ran joined the University of Chicago composition faculty in 1973 and remained until her retirement in 2015, teaching students such as Melinda Wagner, Suzanne Sorkin, and Jorge Liderman. In 1991 she received the Pulitzer Prize for her Symphony of 1990, becoming the second woman to earn the award following Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983.