Introducing Elena Ruehr
The Seminar on Contemporary Music for the Young has fostered the talents of the newest generation of musicians for nearly 50 years at The Rivers School Conservatory (RSC). Continuing the impressive legacy of welcoming numerous renowned composers to share their passion for music, we are thrilled to announce that Elena Ruehr will serve as the Commissioned Artist for 2025. Ruehr is an acclaimed American composer in residence with Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra, a professor at MIT, and she will premiere her new commissioned piece, Piano Quartet No. 2 Maple at this year’s Seminar. 

Telling a Good Story
Ruehr’s passion for storytelling drives her inspiration in creating new music. “Sometimes I start with an idea for a story, as I did in Piano Quartet No. 2 Maple, sometimes I start with a sound that evokes a feeling that I explore.” She explains, “It depends on the piece. A few times someone has asked me to write a piece about an event in their lives and that becomes the story of the piece.”

For Ruehr, the compositional process starts with the question: what do I want to say in my music? When the answer becomes clear, she sits at the piano and begins to improvise. “Once I find that sound, I usually have a kernel of an idea. I then develop that into a larger piece.”

The Intersection of Science and Art: A Foundation for Creating Music
Ruehr reflects that her background at MIT often influences the way she composes. “I think about orchestration and instrumentation as a kind of engineering…there is of course the sound of the instruments, but there’s also the way they work.” She explains, “I don’t use many extended techniques in my instrumental writing because I like to take advantage of the sounds of the instruments at their best as players have studied them. Usually, I write commissions so my instrumentation is often given as part of the commission.  Often, I will listen to other pieces in the same genre before composing to get my ears opened up to the sounds and to enter into the world of the genre.”

Ruehr delves deeper into the technicality of crafting new music from the ground up. “First, I improvise at the piano, writing by hand in pencil sketches of the sounds I like. Then, I enter those sketches into the computer and edit them, stretch them out and develop them, going back and forth in this way between the piano and the computer. Once I get enough material, I start playing the music back, always asking myself: what comes next?” 

“The story propels the form of the music,”says Ruehr.

The Maple Tree: The Inspiration Behind Ruehr’s Commissioned Piece
This year’s commissioned piece is called Piano Quartet No. 2 Maple. This is the origin of many carefully crafted string instruments, in particular, the renowned Stradivarius instruments. Ruehr reflects on the thought behind choosing this topic to explore in her piece and the ideas she drew from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. “It is about the human relationship to the natural world. In some of her chapters, she talks about traditional Native American sustainability practices. I was interested in one such practice where the harvester asks permission from a plant before harvesting it,” Ruehr recalls. That’s where she got the idea to write a work that was about the wood that many string instruments are made from. “The original tree is the kind of ‘soul’ of the instrument. I love that many stringed instruments are hundreds of years old and playing acoustic music is an essentially sustainable human activity. I decided to write a piece that told a story of a maple tree that becomes a violin, with each movement paying homage to a composer from the time period when the great Stradivarius instruments were made.” 

Like a storybook, Elena lays out the sequence of events like chapters. “In the first movement, the maple tree grows from a sapling, and the music is an homage to Pachelbel. In the second movement, the tree grows into maturity and old age during the hundred-year winter. This is one of the reasons the Strads are such great instruments as the wood is formed from very tight rings,” she describes. “At the end of the second movement, a woodcutter asks permission to cut the tree down and the tree says yes. This movement channels J.S. Bach.”

Ruehr concludes the piece with the final product—a violin. “The final movement, loosely mimicking Vivaldi, tells the story of a luthier building an instrument and finally, a player playing it.” 

Advice to Future Musicians: Follow Your Own Internal Idea of Beauty
As the Seminar is based around nurturing the musical knowledge of the new generation, Ruehr imparts some wisdom for young musicians. “To aspiring composers, I would say it’s very important to follow your own internal idea of beauty when composing, while still constantly being open to new and different ideas that will enrich your work. Young composers need to open their minds to all kinds of music so that their mature music will be as rich and profound as possible.”

For musicians in general, Ruehr believes that being a successful classical musician is one of the best careers there is. “The people are fun and nice and it’s a great job! However it’s hard to make a living at it. It’s necessary to be nimble, be willing to be an entrepreneur, and develop your business skills so that you can make great things happen.”

The RSC community highly anticipates Elena Ruehr’s presence at the 2025 Seminar on Contemporary Music for the Young, and the students are excited to bring this to life. To hear the world premiere of her commissioned piece, Piano Quartet No. 2 Maple, be sure to make it to the Seminar from April 4 to April 6. RSVP here!

Article written by Suchi Patel