Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Past News

WRUU “Contemporary Classics” interview with Dave Lake includes three full works, Feb. 9, 2021
Zwilich’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra To Receive Two Online Performances This Season; Artistic Partnership with Santa Rosa Symphony January – May 2021; Grammy Nomination for Contemporary Voices CD – Press release
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra online concert series “BSO Sessions” features an interview with Ellen by Marin Alsop and a performance of her Concerto Grosso – Read more
Contemporary Voices CD nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award – Read more and see the full list of nominees
A Little Violin Music in Memory of Elijah McClain performed by Kelly Hall-Tompkins – Read more and see the performance on YouTube
Cellist Zuill Bailey, who performed the world premiere of Ellen’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra to rave reviews with the South Florida Symphony Orchestra in March, will premiere the chamber version of the concerto with members of the Boulder Philharmonic in an online event scheduled for January 23, 2021. Read more on the Boulder Philharmonic’s event page.
Reviews are appearing for the Pacifica Quartet’s new recording, Contemporary Voices (Cedille Records, July 2020), featuring Ellen’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet with works by Jennifer Higdon and Shulamit Ran. Among these: “Zwilich’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet, the featured score on the Pacifica Quartet’s new album ‘Contemporary Voices,’ continues her exploration of America’s most original art form in a classical setting. The 2007 work is typically concise with three movements spanning just 17 minutes. Still Zwilich’s penchant for unexpected thematic incident and inspired melodic paths pervades every bar in a voice both accessible and thoroughly contemporary,” wrote Lawrence Budmen in South Florida and New York Classical Review sites. Read the full review here. “Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s 2007 Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet…effortlessly blends the spiky rhythms of the massed strings with the slinky smoothness of [the] alto sax. …echoes of Stravinsky and Milhaud laced with a sassy, post-minimalist vibe,” wrote Clive Paget in Musical America. Read the full review here.
Ellen’s new Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, given its world premiere performances (March 5-8, 2020) by Zuill Bailey and the South Florida Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sebrina Maria Alfonso, has received rave reviews:

“Composer Zwilich adds to her musical legacy with Cello Concerto premiere,” wrote Lawrence Budmen in South Florida Classical Review, who called the work “an important addition to the cello concerto literature.” Read the full review here.

“Zwilich’s Snazzy Cello Concerto Soars In Florida,” wrote John Fleming in Classical Voice North America. Read the full review here.

“The blues haunts Zwilich’s fine new cello concerto,” wrote Dennis Rooney in Palm Beach Arts Paper. Read the full review here.
Read interviews with Ellen about the cello concerto premiere on Artburst Miami and Miami Artzine
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Concerto for Cello & Orchestra – World Premiere Performances March 5, 7, 8, 2020 – Press release
Ellen is David Osenberg’s featured guest for two installments of his award-winning program “Cadenza” on WWFM, a lively hour of music and conversation. Here are links to stream the program: Part I and Part II.
The Violin Channel’s “New Music Tuesday” feature focused on Ellen’s Fantasy for Solo Violin, commissioned for the 2014 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and its premiere recording by Jinjoo Cho, on July 23, 2019. Read Ellen’s comments and hear the selection here.
Upcoming performances of Ellen’s music are listed on zwilich.com: www.zwilich.com/performances
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame – ACMHF press release
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame – ACMHF press release
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).” Watch a video of the seven-minute “Wordplay.”
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is Chair of the BMI Student Composer Awards: “5 Female Composers Among 9 Winners in 2017,” NewMusicBox Reports – May 16, 2017
The Tallahassee Democrat reports on the world premiere of Ballet 2017: Celestial Dance for the Tallahassee Youth Orchestra and Tallahassee Ballet – April 28, 2017, and May 4, 2017.
Acclaim for Pas de Trois in The Washington Post, Palm Beach Daily News, Palm Beach Arts Paper, South Florida Classical Review
“A Jazzy, Joyful Premiere” for Zwilich’s Pas de Trois from the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio – Janelle Gelfand’s janellesnotes, September 20, 2016
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Works In Performance Around the Globe – Press release
“Imagining the Sound: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich” – Interview in Ireland’s Final Note Magazine, July 6, 2015
“Kane and Sleeper provide outstanding advocacy in Zwilich world premiere” – South Florida Classical Review, April 19, 2015
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is interviewed in Robert Raines’s Composition in the Digital World – Conversations with 21st Century American Composers, just published by Oxford University Press.
LA Opus interview: Composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Has Found Her Bliss, February 23, 2015
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Symphony No. 1 is No. 1 on Frank J. Oteri’s list of the top American symphonies on NewMusicBox, February 4, 2015.
Sounds Heard–On Shattering, Burning, and Diverting with Passion – NewMusicBox recording review, July 29, 2014
Visit Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s pages on the Theodore Presser Company site for lists of works and awards, recordings, and reviews.
Zwilich’s “Elegy, Soliloquy, and Epilogue” for Solo Flute & String Orchestra To Receive Its World Premiere Performance by Soloist Trudy Kane and the Frost Symphony Orchestra Conducted by Thomas Sleeper – Saturday, April 18, 2015, at Gusman Concert Hall, University of Miami – Press release
Watch the 16 semi-finalists of the 2014 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis perform Zwilich’s Fantasy for Solo Violin in their recital programs.
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at 75, Season Highlights – Press release