"I salute a word.
I stand up and give it my chair."
Watch this six-minute work: "Ubuntu," music by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, poem by Stanley Moss, performed by Mark Risinger, bass; Richard Wilson, piano; and Ellen herself playing the djembe.
Gerard Schwarz interviewed Ellen for his "Behind the Baton" series of talks on Facebook Live. Listen as they talk about playing together in the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, working with Pierre Boulez, and Ellen's thoughts on starting her composing career at a time when it was very much a man's world:
The BMI Foundation, in collaboration with BMI, has announced the nine young classical composers, ages 18 to 26, who have been named winners of the 66th annual BMI Student Composer Awards. Renowned American composer and Chair of the Student Composer Awards Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, BMI President and CEO and BMIF Honorary Chair Mike O’Neill, and BMI Executive Director of Classical and BMIF President Deirdre Chadwick presented the awards at a private ceremony held on May 14, 2018, at Three Sixty° in New York City.
For more information, including the list of the winners: click here
At a reception following an April 8, 2018, concert presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ellen was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame by its president, Dr. Gary L. Ingle, pictured here with Ellen and CMS Executive Director Suzanne Davidson.
For more information, visit http://classicalwalkoffame.org/.
A new series of "Classics for Kids" features on women composers will begin airing on radio stations across the country in March - Women's History Month. An installment on contemporary composers introduces some of them: Caroline Shaw, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Lera Auerbach, Kaija Saariaho, Chen Yi, Jennifer Higdon, Libby Larsen, Missy Mazzoli, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Tania León. You can listen to the short feature here.
The Winnipeg Symphony performed the Canadian premiere of Ellen's Symphony No. 3 on January 31, 2018, as part of its Winnipeg New Music Festival. A video from Ellen introduced the piece, and in it Ellen talks about how the symphony showcases, unusually, the viola section:
Last month, Claudia Schreier & Company premiered a new work, "Wordplay," a pas de deux set to the first movement of Ellen's Quintet for Violin, Viola, Cello, Contrabass & Piano (2011), at an engagement at the Joyce Theater's 2017 Ballet Festival. The New York Times, praising the work's "playful, on-the-nose musicality," said, "'Wordplay' was performed by Unity Phelan and Jared Angle of City Ballet, and it closely resembled something you might see them dance with their home company: a sleek duet to a spiky, rhythmic modernist score (a quintet by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich)."
You can watch the seven-minute work on Vimeo below or HERE.
In 1990, Charles M. Schulz saluted Zwilich in the Peanuts strip for her flute concerto. This led to a fast friendship between the two talents and Zwilich's masterwork Peanuts Gallery, a six-movement piano concerto, each movement illustrates a favorite character from the comic strip. Florida State University produced a documentary, also featured on PBS, of the collaboration that led to the creation of Peanuts Gallery. The DVD is a fascinating documentary on the making of Peanuts Gallery, featuring interviews with Charles M. Schulz, Jean (Mrs. Charles M.) Schulz, and composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich about their creative processes. The video also features a live performance by the Florida State University Orchestra with piano soloist James Nalley, conducted by Alex Jimenez (including Snoopy dancing the Samba!).
Click HERE to purchase the DVD.
Ellen is the permanent chair of the BMI Student Composer Awards. This year, the competition made history: the majority of the 14 winners ages 14 to 28 - five out of nine - are female composers. Frank Oteri filed this report on May 16, 2017.
The Tallahassee Democrat reports on a new Zwilich work commissioned by the Tallahassee Youth Orchestra and Tallahassee Ballet
There has been a lot of buzz about Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's "Pas de Trois" since its premiere on Sept. 18th, 2016 by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. Composed in honor of the ensemble's fortieth anniversary, "Pas de Trois" is the sixth work that she has written for the trio throughout their long and critically acclaimed career.