Karel Husa Visiting Professor of Composition

Elena Ruehr says of her music “the idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex.” And from Gramophone Magazine, “The sound world is wholly Ruehr: it never sounds like anyone else and the effect is exhilarating…her output is unified by her desire to communicate effectively without compromise…”

Currently composer in residence with Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra, she has a major list of recordings including her orchestral works (O’Keeffe Images , BMOP Sound) as well as the opera Toussaint Before the Spirits (BMOP Sound), her cantatas Averno (with the Trinity Choir, Avie), and her Six String Quartets (the Cypress String Quartet, Borromeo Quartet and Stephen Salters, Avie). Her other recordings include Icarus (Avie), Jane Wang considers the Dragonfly (Albany), Lift (Avie), Shimmer (Metamorphosen Chamber Ensemble on Albany) and Shadow Light (The New Orchestra of Washington with Marcus Thompson, Acis), as well as many others.

In addition to having a standing collaboration with QuartetES, her works have been commissioned, recorded, and performed by numerous other string quartets, including the Arneis, Biava, Borromeo, Cypress, Delgani, Lark, Quartet Nouveau, Roco and Shanghai string quartets. An award winning faculty member at MIT, she has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute and composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Known for her vocal music and collaboration with poets, she has written five operas, five cantatas and a number of songs. She has also written extensively for orchestra, chorus, wind ensemble, chamber ensemble, instrumental solo, opera, dance and silent film. Her work has been performed internationally and described as “sumptuously scored and full of soaring melodies” (The New York Times ), and “unspeakably gorgeous” (Gramophone).

Dr. Ruehr taught at MIT from 1992-2025 and lives in the Boston area.