Ellen Reid (born 1983) is an American composer [1] originally from Oak Ridge, Tennessee [2] and living and working in New York City and Los Angeles. [3] Reid is a multi-genre composer whose breadth of work spans classical, opera, sound installations, film scoring, avant-pop, ensemble and choral writing. She is known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, p r i s m, [4] Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK [5] and her work with various orchestras around the world, including the album isomonstrosity .
Reid grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. [2] Her first musical experiences were singing in church choir, playing in the school band and taking piano lessons. She started writing music during her time at Columbia College of Columbia University [6] writing incidental music for plays and scoring films. Her inspiration began with the sounds of her environment. After undergrad, she lived in Thailand for two and a half years, working and learning alongside Thai musicians writing operatic works that drew from both Western and Thai traditions. [7] She didn't meet another female composer until age 25.
As a classical composer, Reid's work has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, RTE, American Composers Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and other institutions around the world. [8]
Reid is the first to have been commissioned by and have world premieres by all four of Los Angeles's major classical music institutions: Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, L.A. Master Chorale and L.A. Chamber Orchestra in addition to being the only female composer to ever have been performed by all four. [7]
Since 2019, Reid has served as Creative Advisor and Composer-in-Residence for L.A. Chamber Orchestra and presently serves as the Contemporary Music Chair. [9] She is currently the first composer to be in residence with both Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Concert Hall and Concertgebouw Orchestra simultaneously. [10]
In November 2018, Reid began composing her first opera, p r i s m, about a sexual assault survivor's psychological struggles, premiered in Los Angeles and was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Music. [11] It was also awarded the Music Critics Association of North America's "Best New Opera Award." [12] Reid is a recipient of Lincoln Center's Emerging Artist Award [13] and she has been one of Musical America's 30 Professionals of the Year. [14]
In 2020, Reid created Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK, a GPS-enabled work of public art that uses music to illuminate the natural environment by reimagining urban parks as interactive soundscapes. [5] SOUNDWALK premiered in New York City's Central Park, featuring the New York Philharmonic, [15] and continues to expand to parks around the world, including Los Angeles' Griffith Park presented by CAP UCLA, [16] London's Regent's Park & Primrose Hill presented by Wellcome Collection [17] and Tokyo's Uneo Park presented by Spring Festival. A forthcoming album for SOUNDWALK will be released this season, [18] featuring music written by Reid and collaborators such as Kronos Quartet, Philadelphia Orchestra, Shabaka Hutchings and Nadia Sirota. [5]
Reid is known for her crackling, lyrical film scores and has worked with A24, Amazon Studios and Duplass Brothers Productions. Reid's first feature film score was for the 2014 drama-mystery The Midnight Swim . [19] She also contributed original music to the soundtrack of the 2016 mystery film Buster's Mal Heart [20] and scored Birds of Paradise , [21] a film produced by Amazon Studios and released in October 2021. All of these films were written and directed by Sarah Adina Smith.
Her work has been featured at film festivals including SXSW, IFC Center, Outfest, Tribeca Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival. [8] Her concert work was also the inspiration for artist Alex Prager's short film Run! [22]
Reid released the album isomonstrosity , an avant-pop collaboration with artists Johan Lenox and Yuga Cohlerl, in 2022. [23] Bringing both her classical and synth-based compositions to the project, the critically-acclaimed vocal chamber music album employs the modern production techniques and aesthetics of hip-hop, assembling contributions from a wide array of artists into a satisfying and varied final work.
isomonstrosity features collaborations with 645AR, Kacy Hill, Vic Mensa, Danny Brown, and Empress Of, among others. The album was released on November 18, 2022. [23]
Reid co-founded Luna Composition Lab in 2016 with Missy Mazzoli. [24] The organization provides mentorship, education and resources for young female, non-binary and gender-nonconforming composers ages 13–18. It is the only program of its kind in the United States. [25]
Reid graduated from Oak Ridge High School in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She then graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in 2005 [26] and earned her MFA at California Institute of the Arts; her teachers included Anne LeBaron, David Rosenboom, and George Lewis. [27]
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is an American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s, she had shifted to a postmodernist, neoromantic style. She has been called "one of America's most frequently played and genuinely popular living composers." She was a 1994 inductee into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. Zwilich has served as the Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.
Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York City at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony (1990) won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music. In this regard, she was the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first being Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983. Ran was a professor of music composition at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 2015. She has performed as a pianist in Israel, Europe and the U.S., and her compositional works have been performed worldwide by a wide array of orchestras and chamber groups.
John Paul Corigliano Jr. is an American composer of contemporary classical music. With over 100 compositions, he has won accolades including a Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and an Academy Award.
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He was the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He resigned from the San Francisco Symphony in 2024.
Osvaldo Noé Golijov is an Argentine composer of classical music and music professor, known for his vocal and orchestral work.
Julia Wolfe is an American composer and professor of music at New York University. According to The Wall Street Journal, Wolfe's music has "long inhabited a terrain of its own, a place where classical forms are recharged by the repetitive patterns of minimalism and the driving energy of rock". Her work Anthracite Fields, an oratorio for chorus and instruments, was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. She has also received the Herb Alpert Award (2015) and was named a MacArthur Fellow (2016).
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).
Hila Plitmann is an Israeli-American two-time Grammy Award-winning operatic soprano, songwriter, and actress specializing in the performance of new works.
The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) is an American chamber orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. LACO presents its Orchestral Series concerts at two venues, the Alex Theatre in Glendale and UCLA's Royce Hall.
Joanna Elizabeth Simon was an American mezzo-soprano and journalist. The daughter of publisher Richard L. Simon, Joanna was an elder sister of singer and songwriter Carly Simon, singer and musical theatre composer Lucy Simon, and photographer Peter Simon.
Erica Muhl is an American composer and conductor who was the president of Berklee College of Music until July 24, 2023. She formerly served as dean of the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy, and was previously dean of the University of Southern California Roski School of Art and Design before being accused of “strategic dismantlement of a formerly renowned studio arts program” by the 2015 graduating class. She received an Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999.
Martin Fröst is a Swedish clarinetist and conductor. As a clarinetist, he performs internationally and is considered one of the most renowned instrumental soloists ever.
Victoria Ellen Bond is an American conductor and composer in New York City.
Anna Clyne is an English composer, now resident in New York City, US. She has worked in both acoustic music and electroacoustic music.
Missy Mazzoli is an American composer and pianist who is a member of the composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music. She has received critical acclaim for her chamber, orchestral and operatic work. In 2018 she became one of the first two women to receive a commission from the Metropolitan Opera House. She is the founder and keyboardist for Victoire, an electro-acoustic band dedicated to performing her music. From 2012-2015 she was composer-in-residence at Opera Philadelphia, in collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theater Group. Her music is published by G. Schirmer. Mazzoli received a 2015 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, a Fulbright Grant to the Netherlands, and in 2018 was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Composition. In 2018, Mazzoli was named for a two-season term as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Mazzoli was named the Bragg Artist-in-Residence at Mount Allison University beginning in 2022.
Christopher Cerrone is an American composer based in New York City. He was a 2014 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a 2014 Fromm Foundation commission recipient, a 2015 Rome Prize winner in Music Composition, and has received numerous awards from ASCAP.
Black conductors are musicians of African, Caribbean, African-American ancestry and other members of the African diaspora who are musical ensemble leaders who direct classical music performances, such as an orchestral or choral concerts, or jazz ensemble big band concerts by way of visible gestures with the hands, arms, face and head. Conductors of African descent are rare, as the vast majority are male and Caucasian.
Andrew Norman is an American composer of contemporary classical music whose texturally complex music is influenced by architecture and the visual arts.
Prism is a 2018 opera by Ellen Reid that explores the post-traumatic stress experience after sexual assault. Reid received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her work on the opera.
Wilbur Lin (林韡函) is a Taiwanese–American conductor best known for his work with orchestras and operas in the United States and Taiwan. As of 2023, he is the music director of the Missouri Symphony in Columbia, Missouri, Music Director of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, and assistant conductor of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Previously, he was assistant conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and a professor at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. Lin was born in New Jersey and moved to Taiwan at age six. In 2008, while attending National Taiwan Normal University, he founded the Chamber Philharmonic Taipei. Lin has conducted ensembles in Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and the United States, including the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Ballet, Manchester Camerata, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, and Richmond Symphony Orchestra of Indiana.
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