Elena Langer

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Elena Langer (Russian: Елена Лангер; born 1974 in Moscow ) is a Russian-British composer living in London .

Life

Elena Langer is the daughter of a musicologist. At the age of six she received piano lessons in a music school parallel to her normal school attendance, and at thirteen private lessons. At the age of fifteen she left school to study musicology and piano at the Gnessin Institute in Moscow . It was there that she wrote her first composition, a collection of piano pieces in the style of Prokofiev . At the age of nineteen she moved to the Moscow Conservatory , where she studied composition with Yuri Vorontsov, but continued to give piano recitals. At the same age she married a Ukrainian whose family had emigrated to the United States. He himself had returned to Moscow, where he worked for various state agencies. In 1999, two years after his transfer to London, she followed him there and continued her studies at the Royal College of Music with Julian Anderson up to a Master of Music . She then did her Ph.D. at the Royal Academy of Music with Simon Bainbridge and decided to stay in London.

Her works include concert and chamber music, choral works and several operas. In 2002/2003 she was appointed the first Jerwood Composer in Association of the Almeida Opera London. In this context she received the commissions for her first two short operas, Ariadne (2002) and The Girl of Sand (2003). Her first major operas are The Lion's Face (2010) and Four Sisters (2012).

In 2009 she won the audience award at the “Teatro Minimo” composition competition at the Zurich Opera for the short opera The Present.

Her opera Figaro Gets a Divorce , a sequel to Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro , received international attention . In the same year, the CD Langer: Landscape With Three People was released on the Harmonia Mundi label, with several of her works from 2002 to 2013, including the monodrama Ariadne and the song cycle Landscape With Three People.

Works

Unless otherwise stated, the following list of works is based on the composer's website (as of November 2017).

Operas and multimedia

  • New Work
  • Towards Les Noces
  • The umbrella
  • Adapting to Light
  • Ariadne, short opera. Libretto: Glyn Maxwell. WP: 2002, Almeida Festival London
  • The Girl of Sand, short opera. Libretto: Glyn Maxwell. WP: 2003, Almeida Festival London
  • The Present, short opera. Libretto: Glyn Maxwell. Premiere: January 25th, 2009, Zurich Opera House
  • Songs at the Well, chamber opera. Premiere: May 10, 2009, Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, New York
  • The Lion's Face, opera. Libretto: Glyn Maxwell. WP: May 20, 2010, Theater Royal, Brighton Festival
  • Four Sisters, opera. Libretto: John Lloyd-Davies. WP: March 9, 2012, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
  • Figaro Gets a Divorce , opera. Libretto: David Pountney . WP: February 21, 2016, Welsh National Opera , Cardiff

Orchestra and ensemble works

  • Platch for solo violin and string orchestra
  • Second Movement for oboe, violin and string orchestra
  • Rain-Bows for string ensemble / orchestra

Chamber music with voices

  • Songs At The Well for two sopranos and ensemble
  • Two Cats Songs for soprano, violoncello and piano
  • TuDa for five female folk music voices, string trio and piano
  • Late Autumn Lullaby II for soprano and piano
  • Landscape with Three People, songs for soprano, countertenor, oboe, violin, violoncello and harpsichord

Chamber music without voices

  • Duduk for clarinet, violoncello and piano
  • The Re-turn for oboe, violin, violoncello and harpsichord
  • Nocturne for two guitars
  • Transformations for violin and piano

Choral works

  • The Prayer for violin and Jewish male choir
  • Havdala for Jewish male choir
  • Jisei for mixed choir

Solo works

  • Triste Voce for solo viola
  • Late Autumn Lullaby I for piano
  • Utrecht Chimes for piano
  • Coda for organ
  • Reflection for piano / harpsichord

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c biography on the composer's website, accessed on November 30, 2017.
  2. ^ Michael Billington: Sound and vision. In: The Guardian of February 15, 2002.
  3. ↑ George Hall: Figaro Gets a Divorce. Review. In: Opera News of February 21, 2016, accessed November 29, 2017.
  4. ↑ a b Elena Langer in Conversation: Figaro Gets a Divorce, WNO. Interview with the composer on walesartsreview.org (English), accessed on November 29, 2017.
  5. ↑ Anno Schreier wins the “Teatro Minimo” composition competition. Erin Gee and Elena Langer were also given commissioned works. Article from January 28, 2009 on klassik.com, accessed November 30, 2017.
  6. ↑ a b Uwe Schweikert : Beyond the avant-garde. Vocal music by Hans Werner Henze and Elena Langer. In: Opernwelt from June 2016, p. 33.
  7. ↑ Opera & Multimedia ( Memento of July 31, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) on the composer's website, accessed on November 30, 2017.
  8. ↑ Concert Repertoire on the composer's website, accessed on November 30, 2017.
  9. ↑ Tim Ashley: L'Altra Euridice. Performance review. In: The Guardian, July 17, 2002, accessed November 30, 2017.
  10. ↑ Andrew Clements: The Girl of Sand - Almeida, London. Performance review. In: The Guardian, July 15, 2004, accessed November 30, 2017.
  11. ^ The Present. Work information at Opening Night! Opera & Oratorio Premieres of Stanford University , accessed on 30 November 2017th
  12. ↑ Songs at the Well. Work information at Opening Night! Opera & Oratorio Premieres of Stanford University , accessed on 30 November 2017th
  13. ↑ The Lion's Face. Press release of May 20, 2010 on Wellcome, accessed November 30, 2017.
  14. ↑ Andrew Clements: The Lion's Face. Performance review. In: The Guardian, May 25, 2010, accessed November 30, 2017.
  15. ↑ Four Sisters. Work information at Opening Night! Opera & Oratorio Premieres of Stanford University , accessed on 30 November 2017th
  16. ^ Elena Langer: Landscape with Three People. CD information from Allmusic , accessed November 30, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Langer, Elena
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian-British composer
DATE OF BIRTH 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow