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Luna Pearl Woolf is an American composer. Her works include opera, chamber music, orchestra, and choral compositions. Many of her pieces incorporate spoken-word recitals and choreography as well as musical performances. As a composer of many different works including operas, dramatic chamber music, silent film scores, and musical story-telling, she’s been commissioned by organizations such as Carnegie Hall, Washington National Opera, Minnesota Sinfonia, Salle Bourgie, ECM+, and others. She has collaborated with many artists including Joyce DiDonato, Frederica von Stade, Daniel Taylor, Lisa Delan, Christopher O’Riley, the Brentano String Quartet, the Russian National Orchestra, and Jeremy Irons amongst many others.[1][failed verification]
Woolf has created commissioned pieces for Carnegie Hall and the Washington National Opera.[2] In 2014 she was an inaugural recipient of Opera America's first grant for female composers.[3]
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.[4]
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.
She is a frequent musical collaborator with cellist Matt Haimovitz. She currently resides in Montreal, Canada.
Luna Pearl Woolf along with cellist Matt Haimovitz, created the label Oxingale Records, a sub-label of PENTATONE, in 2000. The label was planned to publish their own original music, but in 2015 expanded its catalogue to release the music of other classical artists. The project also includes Oxingale Music, which is the publishing side of the label.[5][better source needed]
This opera was 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.”
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.
