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Chris Opperman, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich - Lament

from Still Waters by Chris Opperman

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Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (1939 - )

“I happen to think that we don’t have any idea what music is,” said Ellen
in a 2011 interview with Frank Oteri. “There was a time when in a music appreciation text, the first thing would be: what is music? And the next thing would be the answer to the question: organized sound or something like that. I don’t think we know what it is. There’s something that happens. I have an imagination of something, and I put it on a piece of paper, and it goes to a performer, and when the performer performs, the air vibrates. And we all seem to have sometimes similar reactions to what we’re hearing. What is it? The surface has not been scratched on what music is.”

A prolific composer in virtually all media, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s works have been performed by most of the leading American orchestras and by major ensembles abroad. Her works include five Symphonies and a string of concertos commissioned and performed over the past two decades by the nation’s top orchestras.

Zwilich is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in Music (the first woman ever to receive this coveted award), the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music Prize, the
Arturo Toscanini Music Critics Award, the Ernst von Dohnányi Citation,
an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, four Grammy nominations, the Alfred I. Dupont Award, Miami Performing Arts Center Award, the Medaglia d’oro in the G.B. Viotti Competition, and the NPR and WNYC Gotham Award for her contributions to the musical life of New York City.

Among other distinctions, Ms. Zwilich has been elected to the American Classical Music Hall of Fame, the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1995, she was named to the first Composer’s Chair in the history of Carnegie Hall, and she was designated Musical America’s Composer of the Year for 1999. Ms. Zwilich, who holds a doctorate from The Juilliard School, currently holds the Krafft Distinguished Professorship at Florida State University.

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from Still Waters, released November 3, 2023
Chris Opperman: Piano

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Chris Opperman Clifton, New Jersey

Chris wields a special array of expertise. He's a composer of wildly original music, a top orchestrator/arranger, a visionary educator, and a trusted music industry advisor.

With Arnie & Eric Roth of AWR Music, Chris has worked on several international tours including Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY.

His arrangements have been performed at premiere venues including Carnegie Hall. ... more

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