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Ned Rorem (born October 23, 1923^[1]) is an American composer and diarist. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1976 for his Air Music: Ten Etudes for Orchestra.^[2]

Life

Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana in 1923 as the son and second child of C. (Clarence) Rufus Rorem (1894-1988)^[3] and his wife, the former Gladys W. Miller, born in Illinois.^[4] They met and married in South Dakota in 1920,^[5] where Rufus Rorem was working for Goodyear Rubber.^[6] Ned Rorem had an older sister Rosemary.^[4]

Their paternal grandfather, Ole John Rorem, was an immigrant from Norway; their paternal grandmother, the former Sinnie Thompson, was born in Iowa, as their father was.^[7]

Rorem's father was a medical economist and worked for the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care in Washington, DC.^[8] His ideas and 1930 study contributed to the development of the later combined Blue Cross and Blue Shield medical insurance plans.^{[citation needed]} The family moved to Chicago, where by 1942 the father worked for the American Hospital Association.^[9] Rorem showed an early interest in and talent for music. He received his early education at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and the American Conservatory of Music. He studied at Northwestern University before attending the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and the Juilliard School in New York City. Rorem was raised as a Quaker and refers to this in interviews in relation to his piece A Quaker Reader, which is based on Quaker texts.^[10][11]

In 1966 he published The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem, which – together with his later diaries – has brought him some notoriety. He is open about his and other men's sexuality, describing his relationships with Leonard Bernstein, Noël Coward, Samuel Barber, and Virgil Thomson, and outing several others.^[12] Rorem also had a short affair with writer John Cheever.^[13]

Rorem has written extensively about music as well. These essays are collected in the anthologies Setting the Tone, Music from the Inside Out, and Music and People. His prose is much admired, not least for its barbed observations about such prominent musicians as composer and conductor Pierre Boulez. Rorem has composed in a chromatic tonal idiom throughout his career, and he is not hesitant to attack the orthodoxies of the avant-garde.

His notable students include Jonathan Bailey Holland, Daron Hagen, and David Horne.

Selected works

Operas

• 
  A Childhood Miracle, 1951, opera in one act.


• 
  The Robbers, (1956), a one-act opera.


• 
  Miss Julie (1965)


• 
  Hearing (1966–76), opera in five scenes


• 
  Bertha (1968), opera in one act.


• 
  The Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters (1968), three-act opera.


• 
  Fables (1971), five very short operas to poems by Jean de la Fontaine. The five 'micro-operas' are:
  
  
  
  • The Animals Sick of the Plague
  
  
  • The Bird Wounded by an Arrow
  
  
  • The Fox and the Grapes
  
  
  • The Lion in Love
  
  
  • 
    The Sun and the Frogs.
  
  
  
  


• 
  Our Town (2005), first performed by the Indiana University Opera, Bloomington, in 2006. Subsequent performances have been given by the Show-Me Opera at the University of Missouri, Lake George Opera, Aspen Opera, Central City Opera, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Festival Opera of Walnut Creek, The Catholic University of America, Juilliard Opera, Skylark Opera, Civic Opera of Kansas City, Raylynmor Opera Company, Tufts University, University of South Carolina University of North Texas, Shepherd School of Music, Baldwin–Wallace Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri, and the University of California, Irvine, among others.

[Miss Julie and Our Town are his only full-length operas.]

Symphonies

Symphony No. 1 (1950) [Peermusic Classical]

The First symphony is cast in four fairly brief movements: I. Maestoso II. Andantino III. Largo IV: Allegro. and is scored for full orchestra. Rorem has written of this work:

There are as many definitions of symphony as there are symphonies. In Haydn's day it usually meant an orchestral piece in four movements, of which the first was in so-called sonata form. But with Bach, and later with Beethoven through Stravinsky, Symphony means whatever the composer decides.

Symphony No. 2 (1956) [Boosey & Hawkes]

The Second Symphony is cast in 3 movements of unequal proportion; the 2nd & 3rd combined being less than half the length of the first; I. Broad, Moderate II. Tranquillo III. Allegro. The Second Symphony is probably the composer's least performed. Composed in 1956 it was only performed a handful of times and has remained dormant since 1959 until, as the composer puts it, "José Serebrier resurrected" it 43 years later.

Symphony No. 3 (1958) [Boosey & Hawkes]

The Third Symphony is cast in 5 movements: I. Passacaglia II. Allegro molto vivace III. Largo IV. Andante V. Allegro molto. It is perhaps the best known of Rorem's numbered symphonies, having been premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, April 1959. Three recordings have been issued over the years, though none but the most recent Naxos recording has remained in the catalogue for very long. Notable conductors of this work include: Maurice Abravanel, Leonard Bernstein, André Previn and José Serebrier.

For the Naxos recording the composer noted:

Of the five movements the second movement was written first, the first movement was written next, then came the fourth movement, then the third movement; and the last - fifth - movement was indeed written 'at last'. Movement I is a Passacaglia in C, a slow overture in the grand style. II was written originally for two pianos eight years before the rest, and incorporated as the second movement of the symphony. It is a brisk and jazzy dance. Movement III is a short, passionate page about somnambulism, full of dynamic contrast, and coming from afar. Movement IV is a farewell to France. Movement V is a long and fast Rondo - a Concerto for Orchestra all by itself.

Orchestral

Chamber

Vocal

Selected songs

[All with piano accompaniment, except where stated otherwise.]

Choral

Solo instrumental

Current/recent projects

In an October, 2008 interview, Rorem referred to a new saxophone concerto for Branford Marsalis.^[14] He was commissioned in 2010 to write a piece for clarinet, cello and piano for clarinetist Thomas Piercy. He composed Four Sonnets of Shakespeare for tenor Andrew Kennedy, which premièred at Wigmore Hall, London on September 27, 2009, and a song-cycle, Songs Old and New, written in 2008 for soprano Mary Wilson and premièred by Wilson and the IRIS Chamber Orchestra under Michael Stern in November 2009.^[15]

Recordings

Rorem's works have been extensively recorded. The information below is very scant. For more information, please consult Rorem's own official website in the External Links (below).

• 
  Songs of Ned Rorem Susan Graham (mezzo) Malcolm Martineau (piano) Rorem's settings of poems by Paul Goodman, Theodore Roethke, Witter Bynner, Tennyson, Walt Whitman and others. Erato 80222^[16]
  


• 
  Songs of Ned Rorem with Charles Bressler (tenor) Phyllis Curtin (soprano) Gianna d'Angelo (soprano) Donald Gramm (bass) Regina Sarfaty (mezzo-soprano) Accompanied at the piano by the composer


• 
  Three Symphonies José Serebrier, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Naxos Records 8.559149^[17]
  


• "Gotham Ensemble Plays Ned Rorem" Thomas Piercy, clarinet, Rolf Shulte, violin, Judith Olson, piano, Angelina Réaux, soprano, Humbert Lucarelli, oboe, Delores Stevens, piano. Albany Records [3].


• 
  Day Music, Jaime Laredo (violin), Ruth Laredo (piano); Night Music: Earl Carlyss (violin), Ann Schein (piano). CD, Phoenix USA PHCD123, 1991

Awards

• 1951 - Fulbright Fellowship
  


• 1957 - Guggenheim Fellowship
  


• 1968 - Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters
  


• 1976 - Pulitzer Prize for Music recognizing his suite Air Music: Ten Etudes of Orchestra, first performed in Cincinnati, December 5, 1975^[2][18]
  


• 1998 - Musical America Composer of the Year


• 2003 - ASCAP’s Lifetime Achievement Award,


• 2004 - Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
  


• 2003 - Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur
  

References

Other sources

• Aldrich, Robert and Wotherspoon, Gary (Eds.) (2001). Who's Who in Contemporary Gay & Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day. New York: Routledge.
  ISBN 0-415-22974-X.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ned Rorem

• Answers.com: Ned Rorem


• Ned Rorem @ Boosey & Hawkes


• Art of the States: Ned Rorem


• The Official Ned Rorem Website


• 
  J. D. McClatchy (Spring 1999). "Ned Rorem, The Art of the Diary No. 1". The Paris Review.
  


• Charles Amirkhanian and Fleur Paysour interview Ned Rorem, Nov. 16, 1987


• 
  Ned Rorem (March 13, 2006). "Ned Rorem At Home". NewMusicBox (Interview). Interviewed by Frank J. Oteri (published May 1, 2006). (includes video)


• Songs of Ned Rorem


• The Library of Congress Music Division - Ned Rorem Collection


• 
  Interview with Ned Rorem, April 24, 1986


• 
  Ned Rorem at Library of Congress Authorities, with 325 catalog records