Funded by the Ernst Von Seimens Music Foundation

Commissioned by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts

Text Inspired by Virginia Woolf's Orlando Mandy Kahn's Sleep Requiem

Push/Pull

Ellen Reid is a composer and sound artist whose work “brims with canny invention” (L.A. Weekly). Reid’s work is largely collaborative and takes the form of opera, chamber music, immersive interactive media, and scores for film and theater. Reid’s work has been hailed as “ineffably moving” by Mark Swed of theL.A. Times, “radiant” by Alex Ross of The New Yorker, and it’s been said that her vocal writing would “make you believe that the mythical sirens really existed” (KCRW). Her recent and upcoming projects include dreams of the new world for LA Master Chorale premiered at Walt Disney Concert Hall in May 2018, Prism with Beth Morrison Projects to be premiered by LA Opera in November 2018, a new commission for the LA Philharmonic’s 2018/19 centenary season, the premiere of Petrichor with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, HOPSCOTCH with The Industry (dir. Yuval Sharon), music for Death of a Salesman at BAM, a solo cello piece for Johannes Moser, Push/Pull for International Contemporary Ensemble, and music for Buster’s Mal Heart (starring Rami Malek) with filmmaker Sarah Adina Smith that premiered at Toronto Film Festival. In 2016 she and fellow composer Missy Mazzoli co-founded Luna Composition Lab, a mentorship program directed at young self-identified female and gender non-conforming composers, in partnership with the Kaufman Music Center’s Face the Music program. Ellen received her BFA from Columbia University and her MA from California Institute of the Arts. She splits her time between her two favorite cities—Los Angeles and New York.