Pianist, composer, Sharon Ruchman, creator of "Sharon Ruchman Chamber Music" CD
Two compositions by Washington, Connecticut pianist and composer, Sharon Ruchman, will be performed Wednesday, March 24, during the 10th Annual Hartford Women Composers Festival. The festival will be held at 7:30 p.m. at Sisters of St. Joseph at 27 Park Road in West Hartford.
“Day at Play” and “Day’s End”, two pieces composed and recorded for Ms. Ruchman’s recently-released CD, “Sharon Ruchman Chamber Music”, will be performed during the Festival’s “Local Composers Concert”. A Yale School of Music and New England Conservatory of Music graduate, Ms. Ruchman remarked, “This is truly an exciting opportunity for me to hear two of my pieces performed by other talented musicians.”
Ruchman released her newest CD, “Sharon Ruchman Chamber Music” featuring “Sea Glass” in the fall of 2009. On November 14, 2009, one of her compositions was selected by the National Composers Association to be performed as part of the “Music Under the Redwoods” concert in Portola, California.
“When I wrote this CD, and the featured piece, ‘Sea Glass’,” stated Ruchman, “my thoughts were of Debussy and his style. My thoughts in ‘Day at Play’ were of children playing in a park, and ‘Days End’ was about children winding down from a wonderful day of play, and then gradually falling into sleep.”
Several pieces on "Sharon Ruchman Chamber Music" feature flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon. All 18 compositions were performed by Sharon Ruchman with musicians from throughout Connecticut, and recorded at The Hebbard House in Washington, The Dome in Southbury, and the Kent School Chapel in Kent, all in Litchfield County, Connecticut. Ms. Ruchman's CD was produced in cooperation with Gary Bertz and Wayne Hileman of Candlewood Digital LLC in Washington, Connecticut.
On June 20, 2010, Sharon Ruchman is scheduled to perform her original compositions at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Since 2009, her original compositions have been frequently aired on WSHU and WMNR, two notable classical music stations in Connecticut. “It is very thrilling for me,” commented Ruchman, “to explore and share so much of my musical and composition talents throughout Connecticut.”
The Yale School of Music is where Ruchman earned her Master of Music (MM) degree, and her Bachelor of Music (BM) degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. She was an accompanist with the New England Conservatory chorus, and she returned to the Yale School of Music to study composition in private lessons with Yale graduate, teacher and accomplished composer, Orianna Webb. “During those studies,” Ruchman recalled, “I never imagined I would go on to compose chamber music.”
Ruchman also went on to teach music for several years in the West Haven, Connecticut elementary school. During that time, she pursued her singing career, and performed throughout Connecticut. In 2007, Ruchman’s former cello teacher asked her to compose a cello and piano piece which evoked her talents for composition. During 2007 and 2008, she wrote a few additional pieces and began working with several northwestern Connecticut area musicians.
Ruchman’s love of composition has led her to become a member of several professional composers associations including the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum, and IAWN, International Alliance for Women in Music. “My intention with each title is to give my audience a sense of what a piece will be about before they even hear it. Most of my pieces are lyrical since I love writing beautiful melodies. Some are atonal because I believe it is important to experiment with different instrumentation and styles.”
Texture plays an important role in Ruchman’s music and CD. “My music consists of different styles, different instrumentation. Some pieces are dramatic, some are calming, some are lyrical and some atonal. My compositions offer a real variety of sounds and colors. This CD, I believe, offers all of these textural elements.”
The musical career of Sharon Ruchman has taken her from entering graduate school at the Yale School of Music at age 21, where she studied voice and earned her Master of Music degree. She frequently performed in recitals and was a soloist in the “Mozart Requiem” with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. She went on to sing in some of Yale’s small opera productions, and she was invited to join the Yale Summer School opera program in Norfolk, Connecticut in 1972.
Sharon Ruchman’s singing experience leading up to Yale included singing in choruses and operas in her junior and senior years of high school to singer/pianist at the New England Conservatory of Music. In 1970, she performed in Blossom Music Festival chorus under the direction of Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, and the chamber choir under the direction of Robert Shaw. In 1969 she performed in the chorus in the Ambler Music Festival sponsored by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Brief, 10 second intervals for each of the 18 piano and cello compositions on “Sharon Ruchman Chamber Music” featuring “Sea Glass” can be heard on her newly-launched website, www.sharonruchman.com. Orders for the CD can be placed on the site.
Photo:
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