Lift: Chamber Music

Award winning composer Elena Ruehr's AVIE debut, Averno (AVR 2263), introduced three bold works for choir and orchestra. For her follow-up, Ruehr scales down to intimate solo and chamber works for strings and piano, all with references to older music: baroque elements infuse the Klein Suite, while the three movements of the jazz-tinged Second Violin Sonata are dedicated to her composition teacher William Bolcom, jazz teacher Eddie Russ, and Oscar Peterson, whom Ruehr met on New Year's Eve 1980. The Boston-based Ruehr, whose works are performed from coast to coast, teaches at MIT. Last year, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.