Mark Gresham | 1 DEC 2022
American composer and author Ned Rorem (1923 – 2022) died on November 18 at his home in Manhattan at age 99. The Richmond, Indiana native composed symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber music, and more than 500 art songs, defiantly holding onto a relatively conservative approach when the prevailing trend was academic and serialist.
Rorem got an early start. At age 19 he earned a scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Then came a Fulbright scholarship, followed by a Guggenheim fellowship. In 1976, Rorem won the Pulitzer Prize for his orchestral work Air Music.
Rorem was also a skilled author and astute critic, noted for his belles-lettres. In one of his books, Lies, Rorem wrote, “Why do I write music? Because I want to hear it. It’s simple as that.”
In tribute to the memory of Ned Rorem, pianist Cary Lewis has offered Earpiece some live concert recordings of Rorem’s music performed with his wife, cellist Dorothy Hall Lewis, and some of their colleagues: flutists Jacqueline Hofto and Christina Smith, violinist Nancy Schechter, and soprano Teresa Hopkin. ■
Total duration: 70:08
Teresa Hopkin, soprano
Dorothy Lewis, cello
Cary Lewis, piano
Duration: 24:57
Christina Smith, flute
Cary Lewis, piano
Duration: 4:46
Jacqueline Hofto, flute
Dorothy Lewis, cello
Cary Lewis, piano
Duration: 24:08
Nancy Schechter, violin
Dorothy Lewis, cello
Cary Lewis, piano
Duration: 16:17
EXTERNAL LINKS
■ Dorothy & Cary Lewis: laniertrio.org
■ Ned Rorem profile at Boosey & Hawkes: boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/composer_main?composerid=2740
Mark Gresham is publisher and principal writer of EarRelevant. he began writing as a music journalist over 30 years ago, but has been a composer of music much longer than that. He was the winner of an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for music journalism in 2003.
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