Luna Pearl Woolf Explained

Luna Pearl Woolf is a Canadian-American composer, producer, and dramaturg. Her oeuvre includes opera, chamber music, orchestra, and choral compositions including works for dramatic chamber music, silent film scores, and musical story-telling. Her works have been commissioned Carnegie Hall, Washington National Opera,^[1] Tapestry Opera,^[2] Minnesota Sinfonia, Salle Bourgie, ECM+, Perelman Performing Arts Center,^[3] Concours Musical International de Montréal,^[4] among others, with collaborations with artists including Jeremy Irons, Cornelia Funke, Joyce DiDonato, Frederica von Stade, Royce Vavrek, David Van Taylor, Matt Haimovitz, and Dame Evelyn Glennie amongst many others.

In 2014 she was an inaugural recipient of Opera America's first grant for female composers.^[5]

Biography

Luna Pearl Woolf was born in 1973 in Western Massachusetts. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University, graduating Summa Cum Laude in music composition in 1996, and a Master of Arts from Smith College in music composition.^[6]

Woolf's principal composition teachers have been Mario Davidovsky, Augusta Read Thomas, Lewis Spratlan and Don Wheelock. Woolf was awarded the Ellen Taafe Zwilich Prize from the IAWM, the John Greene Scholarship and John Knowles Paine Fellowship from Harvard University, and the Settie Lehman Fatman Prize from Smith College.

Canada’s CBC Music named the JUNO award-nominated recording Vagues et Ombres including Woolf’s 2022 work, Contact, as their #1 Classical Album of the year;^[7] and her 2021 composer-portrait album, LUNA PEARL WOOLF: Fire and Flood (Pentatone Oxingale Series) was nominated for a GRAMMY-Award.^[8]

She is a co-founder of Oxingale Productions, Inc. which includes Oxingale Records and Oxingale Music, and is a recording producer with producing credits on Leaf, Atma, Oxingale and PENTATONE albums.^[9] She is Creative Mentor & Dramaturg at Musique 3 Femmes.^[10]

She currently resides in Montréal, Canada.

Oxingale Records

Luna Pearl Woolf along with cellist Matt Haimovitz, created the label Oxingale Records, a sub-label of PENTATONE, in 2000.^[11]

Oxingale Music

Oxingale Music is an independent music publisher launched in 2010 focusing on exceptional contemporary composers, featuring works from solo to chamber to opera and beyond. A destination for cellists, their catalog is rich in music for strings and string ensembles, including original works and innovative arrangements from the traditional repertoire, Jazz and rock. Current represented composers include Luna Pearl Woolf, Lewis Spratlan, David Sanford, Anna Pidgorna, Matt Haimovitz (arranger), Thibault Bertin-Maghit (arranger), and Niloufar Nourbakhsh.^[12]

Critical responses

Number Our Days

A photographic oratorio, based on Jamie Livingston's "Photo of the Day" with music by Luna Pearl Woolf and libretto and concept by David Van Taylor, a late friend of Livingston.^[13] The work was commissioned by the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC), and was premiered April 12-14, 2024, conducted by Kamna Gupta, directed by Ty Defoe, and co-produced by Trinity Church Wall Street. Performers include countertenor John Holiday, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, NOVUS NY, Trinity Youth Chorus, and Downtown Voices.^[14]

• "Woolf was the ideal composer because she is fluent in the language of many musical styles...What started as an oratorio about Livingston was now about the basic human need for connection and meaning..."^[15]
• The oratorio’s composer, Luna Pearl Woolf, says taking the pictures was “something of a spiritual practice, which turned out to be important to people around him, and to people all over the world. We’re not exactly making art about an artist. We’re making art about a phenomenon.”^[16]
• "...an accomplished musical composition that comfortably and confidently integrates various styles...a surprisingly theatrical kind of oratorio, complete with vivid characterizations."^[17]

Jacqueline

An opera in four movements for soprano and cello about the life of legendary cellist Jacqueline du Pré. Commissioned by Tapestry Opera for Matt Haimovitz and Marnie Breckenridge.^[18] Nominated for five Dora Awards,^[19] winning for outstanding performance by an individual (Marnie Breckenridge).^[20]

• "an extraordinary piece, one that deserves an unquestioned place in the 21st-century canon" - The Globe and Mail^[21]
• "a tour-de-force" - Ludvig Von Toronto^[22]
• "Marnie Breckenridge and cellist Matt Haimovitz are sublime" - Mooney on Theatre^[23]
• "go for the music, stay for everything else" - Schmopera^[24]

The Pillar

First performed by The Washington Chorus for its New Music for New Age Series, February 28, 2016.^[25] Performed at the National Presbyterian Church by cellist Matt Haimovitz, soprano Marnie Breckenridge, tenor and Jonathan Blalock, baritone James Shaffran, and The Washington Chorus dorected by Julian Watchner.^[26]

The Pillar is based on Diana B. Henriques' book The Wizard of Lies; Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust. Woolf was among the first recipient of the Opera America's Discovery Grant in 2014 to develop this work.^[27]

Angel Heart, a music storybook

A children's story told in words and music. First performed in September 2014 with narration by actor Jeremy Irons, with words from Cornelia Funke. The New York Times writes: “Ms. Woolf’s atmospheric music serves a different purpose… her compositions add psychological nuances and emotional depth through ever-changing textures. The … ensemble produces a dazzling variety of sounds, from the rich and earthy to the ethereal.”^[28]

Entanglement

Entanglement is a composition for a cello and percussion duo that was inspired by Melange a Trois, an “instrumental theatre work that featured percussionist Krystina Marcoux who used the body of a cello for her instrument”. The piece was written for one player that bowed the cello, and another that struck and caressed the cello.

The Calgary Herald says, “the cello is bowed by one player and struck and caressed by the other, it appears that Sandvoss suddenly is using four arms to play, giving the instrument a sensual quality, perhaps best summarized as an opera aria for cello, entangling a dramatic theatricality and an erotic intimacy between instrument and performer(s)”...“carefully considered the relationship of physicality to the performers’ bodies, for example their height, physical performance characteristics and their physical relationship with the instrument. Set in shards of imitative Bach cello suite fragments, and buttressed with non-tonal impressionistic properties, both percussive or spectral, the discontinuous narrative was something to be experienced, and far less so to be analyzed”.^[29]

Notable works

• Number Our Days (2024) A Photographic Oratorio Based on Jamie Livingston's "Photo of the Day" with music by Luna Pearl Woolf and libretto and concept by David Van Taylor.^[30]
• Mar y sol (2023) for contralto and piano.^[31]
• l'Inconnu.e bouleversant.e (2023) for solo violin, written as the imposed Canadian work for the Violin 2023 edition of the Concours Musical International de Montréal.^[32]
• Contact (2021) for string ensemble.^[33]
• Diaphanous Grace (2020) for solo cello, commissioned by The Primavera Project for Matt Haimovitz.^[34]
• Jacqueline (2019) An Opera in Four Movements with music by Luna Pearl Woolf and libretto by Royce Vavrek.^[35]
• To the Fire (1994/rev.2018) for six male voices, or AATBBB choir a capella.^[36]
• Act Without Words I (2017), a musical incarnation of Samuel Beckett's 1956 silent play.^[37]
• Entanglement (2016) is a piece for cello and percussion which also requires the musicians to follow a series of choreographed movements.^[38]
• Better Gods (2015) is an opera dealing with the abdication of Liliʻuokalani.^[39]
• The Pillar (2014) is an opera dealing with the life of Bernard Madoff.^[40]
• Rumi: Quatrains of Love (2012) for sprano or mezzo-soprano, cello, and piano.^[41]
• Angel Heart: A Musical Storybook (2011) is a spoken-word piece written in collaboration with Cornelia Funke and narrated by Jeremy Irons.^{[42] [43]}
• Après Moi, le Déluge (2006) for solo cello and SATB choir a cappella.^[44]

Discography

• 1998 - Lemons Descending. Oxingale Records (OX2001). Epithalamion (1998) is recorded on this album.
• 2003 - Anthem. Oxingale Records (OX2004). Impromptu (2001) is recorded on this album.
• 2005 - Goulash!. Oxingale Records (OX2007). Romanian Folk Dances (arr. 2005) and Kashmir (arr. 2005) are recorded on this album.
• 2006 - Après Moi, le Déluge. Oxingale Records (OX2009). Après Moi, le Déluge (2006) and Orpheus on Sappho's Shore (2004) are recorded on this album.
• 2008 - Vinyl/Cello. Oxingale Records (OX2011). Après Moi, le Déluge (2006) is recorded on this album.
• 2009 - And if the song be worth a smile. PENTATONE (PTC: 5186099). Odas de todo el mundo (2006) is recorded on this album.
• 2009 - Figment. Oxingale Records (OX2016). Sarabande (2009) is recorded on this album.
• 2013 - The Hours Begin to Sing. PENTATONE (PTC: 5186429). Rumi: Quatrains of Love (2012) is recorded on this album.
• 2013 - Angel Heart, a music storybook. Oxingale Records (OX2023). Angel Heart (2011), All Through the Night (arr. 2011), O Waly Waly (arr. 2011), Danny Boy (arr. 2011), The Adventurer (arr. 2011), O Absalom (arr. 2011), Ho Ho Wananay (arr. 2011), Sleep Baby Sleep (arr. 2011), Tiefer und Tiefer (arr. 2011) are recorded on this album.
• 2015 - DECEMBER CELEBRATION New Carols by Seven American Composers. PENTATONE (PTC: 5186537). How Bright the Darkness, a winter solstice carol (2014) is recorded on this album.
• 2015 - Orbit. PENTATONE Oxingale Series (PTC: 5186542). Sarabande (2009) and Helter Skelter (arr. 2012) are recorded on this album.
• 2016 - Overtures to Bach. PENTATONE Oxingale Series (PTC: 5186561). Lili‘uokalani (2015) is recorded on this album.
• 2018 - Angel Heart, a music storybook. PENTATONE Oxingale Series (PTC: 5186731). Angel Heart (2011), All Through the Night (arr. 2011), O Waly Waly (arr. 2011), Danny Boy (arr. 2011), The Adventurer (arr. 2011), O Absalom (arr. 2011), Ho Ho Wananay (arr. 2011), Sleep Baby Sleep (arr. 2011), Tiefer und Tiefer (arr. 2011) are recorded on this album.
• 2019 - Ein Engel in der Nacht. PENTATONE Oxingale Series (PTC: 5186798). Angel Heart (2011), All Through the Night (arr. 2011), O Waly Waly (arr. 2011), Danny Boy (arr. 2011), The Adventurer (arr. 2011), O Absalom (arr. 2011), Ho Ho Wananay (arr. 2011), Sleep Baby Sleep (arr. 2011), Tiefer und Tiefer (arr. 2011) are recorded on this album.
• 2019 - Cello ROCK. PENTATONE Oxingale Series (PTC: 2186801). Kashmir (arr. 2007) and Helter Skelter (arr. 2012) are recorded on this album.
• 2020 - Cello JAZZ. PENTATONE Oxingale Series (PTC: 5186929). Après Moi, le Déluge (2006) is recorded on this album.
• 2020 - LUNA PEARL WOOLF: Fire and Flood. PENTATONE Oxingale Series (PTC: 5186803). Nominated for a 2021 GRAMMY-award for Best Classical Compendium.^[45] To the Fire (1994/2008), 'Après Moi, le Déluge (2006), Missa in Fines Orbis Terrae (2017), One to One to One (2016), Who by Fire (arr. 2016) are recorded on this album.
• 2021 - PRIMAVERA I the wind. PENTATONE Oxingale Series (PTC: 5186286). Nominated for a 2022 Grammy Award for Best Producer - Classical. Diaphanous Grace (2020) is recorded on this album.
• 2022 - Vagues et ombres. Alpha Classics (ALPHA858). Contact (2021) is recorded on this album.

External links

• Official website of Luna Pearl Woolf
• Oxingale Music Composer Page
• PENTATONE Artist Page
• Apple Music
• Spotify

Notes and References

1. Web site: Luna Pearl Woolf . New Music USA . 12 December 2018.
2. Web site: Jacqueline - Tapestry Opera . 7 December 2019 .
3. Web site: Number Our Days | Perelman Performing Arts Center .
4. Web site: VIOLIN 2023: AN IMPOSED CANADIAN WORK BY COMPOSER LUNA PEARL WOOLF - News .
5. Web site: Logan . Emma . Act Without Words: Interview With Luna Pearl Woolf . 14 March 2017 . Center For New Music . 12 December 2018.
6. Web site: Crossover Media. www.crossovermedia.net. 2020-05-04.
7. Web site: https://www.cbc.ca/music/junos/here-are-all-the-2023-juno-nominees-1.6724343.
8. Web site: https://www.grammy.com/news/2021-grammys-complete-winners-nominees-list.
9. Web site: Luna Pearl Woolf Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & . .
10. Web site: About .
11. Web site: MusicalAmerica - Press Releases .
12. Web site: https://oxingalemusic.com/.
13. Larson . Sarah . David Van Taylor Revives a Late Friend's Passion Project . The New Yorker . April 2024 . June 24, 2024.
14. Web site: Number Our Days | Perelman Performing Arts Center . PAC NYC . June 24, 2024 .
15. Web site: Johnson . Anne E. . Oratorio As Snapshots: Images From A Lifetime Framed In Words, Music . Classical Voice North America . 16 April 2024 . July 24, 2024.
16. Web site: D'Arcy . David . A photographer's 19-year ritual of taking a daily Polaroid becomes a musical performance . The Art Newspaper . 11 April 2024 . July 24, 2024.
17. Web site: drediman . THE HANGOVER REPORT – The musically accomplished oratorio NUMBER OUR DAYS implores audiences to live life in the present moment . Interludes . July 24, 2024.
18. Web site: Waxberg . Greg . Jacqueline – Luna Pearl Woolf Turns Celebrated Cellist's Story Into an Opera . Opera Wire . 14 July 2020 . July 24, 2024.
19. Web site: TAPA - Nominees . theatre dance opera . toronto alliance for the performing arts . July 24, 2024 . 13 April 2021 .
20. Web site: 2020 Dora Award Recipients . theatre dance opera . 13 April 2021 . toronto alliance for the performing arts.
21. News: Simeonov . Jenna . Tapestry Opera's Jacqueline strips away the inessential to reveal a moving story free from ego . The Globe and Mail . 20 February 2020 . The Globe and Mail . July 24, 2024.
22. Web site: So . Joseph . Emotional Power And Bravura Performance In Tapestry Opera's Jacqueline . Ludwig van Toronto . 20 February 2020 . July 24, 2024.
23. Web site: Grant . Keira . REVIEW: JACQUELINE (TAPESTRY OPERA) . Mooney on Theatre . July 24, 2024.
24. Web site: Zarathus-Cook . Michael . Jacqueline: come for the music, stay for everything else . schmopera . July 24, 2024.
25. News: Porter . Cecelia H. . Washington Chorus makes splendid theater out of Luna Pearl Woolf's works . The Washington Post . July 22, 2024.
26. Web site: Laing . Patty . The Washington Chorus presents New Music for A New Age . Patch . 12 February 2016 . July 22, 2024.
27. Web site: OPERA America Announces Recipients of Opera Grants for Female Composers: Discovery Grants . Opera Ameria . July 22, 2024.
28. Web site: da Fonseca-Wollheim . Corinna . A Crushed Spirit, Healed by the Whispers of Angels . The New York Times . July 22, 2024.
29. Web site: Bonfield . Stephan . New Music review: Evelyn Glennie and Land's End Ensemble provide spectacular evening of six premieres at the Bella . The Calgary Herald . July 24, 2024.
30. Web site: Johnson . Anne E. . Oratorio As Snapshots: Images From A Lifetime Framed In Words, Music . Classical Voice North America . 16 April 2024 . July 22, 2024.
31. Web site: Huss . Christophe . La douce violence de Rose Naggar-Tremblay . Le Devoir . 14 December 2023 . July 22, 2024.
32. Web site: VIOLIN 2023: AN IMPOSED CANADIAN WORK BY COMPOSER LUNA PEARL WOOLF - News . Concours Musical International de Montreal . July 22, 2024 .
33. Web site: Vagues et ombres . Collectif9 . July 22, 2024 .
34. Web site: Luna Pearl Woolf . The Primavera Project . July 22, 2024.
35. Web site: Grant . Keira . REVIEW: JACQUELINE (TAPESTRY OPERA) . Mooney on theatre .
36. Web site: Cristi . A.A. . LUNA PEARL WOOLF: Fire and Flood Composer-Portrait Album Now Available . Broadway World . July 22, 2024.
37. Web site: Pesetsky . Benjamin . Bard Music West Announces Inaugural Festival "The World of György Ligeti" . Bard Music West . July 22, 2024.
38. News: da Fonseca-Wollheim . Corinna . Concert Choreography: When Musicians Get Up And Move . The New York Times . 28 July 2017 . 12 December 2018.
39. Web site: Kelly . Jeanette . Montreal composer Luna Pearl Woolf writes first opera, Better Gods . CBC . 12 December 2018.
40. News: H. Porter . Cecelia . Washington Chorus makes splendid theater out of Luna Pearl Woolf's works . The Washington Post . 12 December 2018.
41. Web site: Rumi: Quatrains of Love . Oxingale Music . 30 May 2013 . July 22, 2024.
42. Web site: Luna Pearl Woolf . Napa Valley Festival . 12 December 2018.
43. Web site: Luna Pearl Woolf, composer . From The Top . 12 December 2018.
44. Web site: Buja . Maureen . Flood Luna Pearl Woolf's Après moi, le déluge . Interlude . 17 December 2023 . July 22, 2024.
45. Web site: 2021 GRAMMYs Awards Show: Complete Winners & Nominees List . Grammy Awards . GRAMMYS . July 22, 2024.