By Ear: étude for piano

Ruach (and Other Delights) was composed during the spring and summer months of 2020. In an attempt to find some light amidst all of the darkness in the world, I began reading Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, a series of essayettes in which he poetically documented one thing that delighted him every day for an entire year. Moved by this idea, as well as the essays themselves, I decided to document some of the things that delighted me during my quarantine in Dallas, TX with my girlfriend (now wife!) Emily Levin and our two dogs Charlie and JoJo.

The piece consists of a series of 12 short musical episodes or miniatures played without pause, always connected by or derived from the large 12 note chord that unfolds at the beginning of the work. I chose the Hebrew word Ruach (spirit/breath/wind) because to me it expresses an omnipresent force that is the source of and activates the twelve delightful episodes, uniting them throughout the work. The general form is that of an arch: Slow - Fast - Slow - Fast - Slow, but more specifically the titles of each of the connected miniatures that appear in the score are as follows:

Fairy Lights (m. 16)
Fairy Lights of a Different Color (m. 30)
The Blue Bar (m. 36)
Paws (m. 74)
Lift off from 72258 (m. 117)
More Paws (m. 144)
Final Descent into 75203 (m. 159)
Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight (m. 192) 
Zooming (m. 230)
Microburst (m. 301)
Midnight Walks (m. 321)
New Beginnings (m. 337)

I will be the first to admit that I often find myself losing faith, and more generally, I sometimes tend to see the negatives rather than the positives, especially in this troubling age. However, it is in the darkest of times that we must not forget all of the little delights in life. Perhaps a higher power is somehow guiding each of us down our own paths toward these special people, places, and things, and it is my sincere hope that the music inspires, you, the listener, to ponder this great mystery.

Season Finale

Ruach (and Other Delights)

Performance by the Juilliard Orchestra And Jeff Milarsky from April 28th at Alice Tully Hall

Aft Agley

Jonathan Cziner (b. 1991) is an American composer based in New York City. His music combines colorful harmony and texture with nostalgic lyricism, creating a sound-world that ranges from dark and mysterious to vibrant. Drawing on a wide variety of inspirations, Jonathan’s writing engages the senses and the emotions, fully immersing listeners in the musical experience.  

A 2018 Charles Ives Scholarship recipient from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Jonathan's works have been performed in the United States and Europe by ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra, and New Juilliard Ensemble.  Recent commissions include Once New for the Lyric Chamber Music Society, Fantasy Chorale for the American Guild of Organists, and Nebulous for the Dallas Harp Quartet, with performances at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Bargemusic, and (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City.

His orchestral work Resonant Bells, premiered by David Robertson and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, was awarded the William Schuman Prize for most outstanding score at the BMI Student Composer Awards as well as the 2018 Palmer Dixon Prize, awarded to the most outstanding work composed at the Juilliard School. The piece was then selected by the Minnesota Orchestra for performance at the 2018-2019 Minnesota Orchestra Composer’s Institute with Maestro Osmo Vänskä. Cziner’s most recent orchestral piece, flowers of fire, was written to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the World War I armistice and was premiered by the Juilliard Orchestra with soprano Kathleen O’Mara and Maestro Jeffery Milarsky in February 2019.

Jonathan is currently the associate artistic director of the Charles Ives Concert Series, which focuses its programming on the music of Ives, as well as other past and present American composers. He served for two years as co-artistic director of Dynamic Music Festival, an annual concert series dedicated to premiering works of student composers attending universities in the New York City area. Equally dedicated to film scoring, he has worked with writer/director Nora Unkel on her 2015 film The Goblin Song, and has most recently scored her first feature film, A Nightmare Wakes in 2019. 

Cziner began formal composition training upon his acceptance to New York University, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree studying with Justin Dello Joio. He completed his Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Robert Beaser, and is in the midst of his studies in Juilliard’s prestigious C.V. Starr doctoral program.

Ruach (and Other Delights)

Jonathan Cziner

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