Tamar Muskal
Israeli-American composer (born 1965)
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Tamar Muskal (Hebrew: תמר מוסקל; born 1965) is an Israeli-American composer. She received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her 2005 piece The Yellow Wind. She was composer-in-residence for the Westchester Philharmonic and is a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow.
Tamar Muskal | |
|---|---|
תמר מוסקל | |
| Born | 1965 (age 60–61) Jerusalem, Israel |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Spouse | Danny Rozin |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (2009) |
| Musical career | |
| Genres | Contemporary classical music |
Biography
Tamar Muskal was born in Jerusalem in 1965 and obtained her BA from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.[1] She and her husband emigrated to the United States,[2] where she went on to do her master studies at Yale University and the City University of New York.[3] Her teachers include Mark Kopytman, Martin Bresnick, Jacob Druckman, Ezra Laderman, David Del Tredici, Tania Leon,[1] and Paul Lustig Dunkel.[3]
In 2005, she premiered The Yellow Wind, her hour-long Westchester Philharmonic commission themed after Israel–Palestine relations, at the State University of New York at Purchase Performing Arts Center; Anne Midgette of The New York Times called it "a huge opener for a large-scale program".[4] She also received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for The Yellow Wind.[2] When her piece Mirrors, commissioned by Eighth Blackbird, was performed in Pittsburgh in February 2008, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review review said that "music from Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound must have been playing in Muskal's mind when she wrote one section of this piece".[5]
She composed "Mar de Leche", the third track of Maya Beiser's 2010 album Provenance.[6] She and Barbara Harbach provided original scores for a 2016 Women in Film & Television screening of some of Alice Guy-Blaché's silent films.[7] She did the last tracks of the four-composer flute album Alive in the Studio.[8] She composed "Where Do We Belong? A Conversation with Bach" in the album New for Violin & Piano; the American Record Guide said that "Muskal's intellectual conversation with Bach is palpable here".[9]
In 2017, she did a piece commemorating Sojourner Truth, commissioned by Close Encounters With Music.[2] Another Close Encounters With Music commission, One Earth, premiered in November 2022 after being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2]
She spent years as composer-in-residence for the Westchester Philharmonic education program.[3] In 2009, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.[1]
As of 2001, Muskal was a resident of Manhattan.[3] She holds dual American and Israeli citizenship.[3] Her husband is artist Danny Rozin, with whom she collaborated for her Eighth Blackbird commission.[10]