Composer of the Week

A master of both music and the written word, Ned Rorem has become one of America’s most honored composers.

Known primarily for his art songs (which number over 500), he has been the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his Air Music for orchestra, as well both a Fulbright (1951) and Guggenhiem (1957) Fellowship. He is a three-time recipient of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, was named Composer of the Year in 1998 by Musical America, and in 2003 was the recipient of ASCAP’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rorem spent two years at Northwestern University before attending The Curtis Institute on scholarship. He later studied with Bernard Wagenaar at Juilliard, earning his B.A. in 1946 and his M.A. in 1948.
Stylistically, Rorem has rarely strayed far from diatonicism, though several of his works do employ other techniques, including altered chords, polytonality, and modified forms of serialism. His works have been commissioned by the Ford Foundation, the Lincoln Center Foundation, the Koussevitsky Foundation, the Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Chicago Symphonies, and the New York Philharmonic. Artists for whom these works were commissioned include Jeffery Khaner (principal flute, Philadelphia Orchestra), David Geringas (solo cellist), and Dame Evelyn Glennie (solo percussionist).

In 2003, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, the international music community joined in celebrating Rorem’s music with various festivals and performances. Highlighting this celebration was “Roremania,” sponsored by The Curtis Institute, which featured many different genres of the composer’s work.
Having enjoyed a career of more than 60 years as a composer, Rorem continues to write and compose, with his most recent diary Facing the Night having hit shelves in 2005 and the world premiere of his opera Our Town in 2006. Currently, Mr. Rorem resides in New York.

Look Down, Fair Moon, by Ned Rorem

Other Notable Works:

Evidence of Things Not Seen (1997), for four solo voices and piano, commissioned by the New York Festival of Song

Our Town (2006), an opera in two acts, commissioned by the Indiana University Opera Theater, and five co-commissioners

String Symphony (1985), for string orchestra, commissioned by the Atlanta Symphony