Mirage is based upon the final movement of a string quartet I wrote several years ago, Four Temperaments. In that movement, I wanted to explore nostalgia – that split-second feeling when one is back in a place or in a time to the point at which it really feels like one is living it again. Throughout the work, the solo violin functions as a type of narrator. In the beginning, I attempted to create music that suggests that dizzying or disorienting feeling that occurs when one is moving further and further down the rabbit hole of a memory. After the opening section, the work imagines that brief moment when we relive the memory but stretched out in time - like hitting the pause button on that split second of heightened nostalgia. Effects and a final solo violin lead us, in a hazy way, back out of the memory to where we began.

Mirage

Commissioned for world premiere by the Charles Ives Music Festival with solo hornist, Priscilla Rinehart.

Essential - Solo Horn and String Orchestra with Harp

Jeff Multer, solo violin
Julian Schwarz, solo cello
Eastern Music Festival Orchestra led by Gerard Schwarz

Finding Religion

There Are Stars for flute and string orchestra

Katie Althen, flute
Eric Mahl, conductor
CIMF Chamber Orchestra

There are stars
whose light reaches the earth only after they themselves have disintegrated
and are no more.

And there are people
whose scintillating memory lights the world after they have passed from it.

These lights –
which shine in the darkest night – are those which illumine for us the path.

-Hannah Senesh

There Are Stars

Premiered on May 19th at the Charles Ives Music Festival's "Inextinguishable" event in memory of the Holocaust. Based on Martin Goldsmith's "The Inextinguishable Symphony" and dedicated to the Goldschmidt and Gumpert families. 

Featured musicians:
Giora Schmidt, violin
Julian Schwarz, cello
Marika Bournaki, piano

Inextinguishable

'Dawn' for Ten Musicians - 2025 version

Four Pieces was written in spring and summer of 2015 for pianist Robert Fleitz. Having written a lot of serious music over the last several years, it was appealing to me to write music that would be a little bit more care-free, yet still retain the emotional depth and clear narrative structure that I always strive for, both within and between movements. The first movement, Lilt, came out of a previous collaboration with Robert Fleitz, who asked 18 composers to write variations on a famous melody by Medieval composer Guillaume de Machaut. The title refers to the rhythmic "groove" that pervades the entire movement. Inspired by Robert's variation project, the second movement is itself titled Variation and features different settings of a simple melody. The title of the third movement, Shift, refers its structural purpose as it serves as a transition from the second movement to the fourth, Pep, which begins attacca directly from the third. Pep refers to the upbeat nature of the melody and fourth movement in general. 

Four Pieces I. Lilt

Four Pieces II. Variation

Four Pieces III. Shift

Four Pieces IV. Pep

Dawn Hochsprung was an incredible person I had the fortune of meeting when I was a student at Roger’s Park Middle School from 2000- 2003, where she was an assistant principal. I worked with both her and her husband, George, as a member of National Junior Honor Society. When the tragic events occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14th, 2012, I, like everyone else in the Danbury area, was shocked and deeply saddened. The Hochsprungs had always stuck out in my mind as not just outstanding teachers, but some of the most caring, genuine, and positive people that I had come across during my time growing up in Danbury. I felt immediately compelled to write something for George and also for the other families who lost loved ones.

I titled the piece Dawn not simply because it is dedicated to her, but because the nature of Dawn’s actions on the day of shooting are the inspiration for the character of this piece. When she became aware that her school was in danger, her immediate response was to protect the children of the school. She put herself in harm’s way in an entirely selfless act in an effort to save the lives of her students. Her legacy is one of selflessness, positivity, and extraordinary courage. This piece celebrates that legacy.

Dawn (orchestra version)

Rhapsody (for string quartet)

Dawn Hochsprung was an incredible person I had the fortune of meeting when I was a student at Roger’s Park Middle School from 2000- 2003, where she was an assistant principal. I worked with both her and her husband, George, as a member of National Junior Honor Society. When the tragic events occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14th, 2012, I, like everyone else in the Danbury area, was shocked and deeply saddened. Dawn and Geroge had always stuck out in my mind as not just outstanding teachers, but some of the most caring, genuine, and positive people that I had come across during my time growing up in Danbury. I felt immediately compelled to write something for in memory of her and the other twenty-five people who lost their lives that day.
I titled the piece Dawn not simply because it is dedicated to her, but because the nature of Dawn’s actions on the day of shooting are the inspiration for the character of this piece. When she became aware that her school was in danger, her immediate response was to protect the children of the school. She put herself in harm’s way in an entirely selfless act in an effort to save the lives of her students. Her legacy is one of selflessness, positivity, and extraordinary courage. This piece celebrates that legacy. 

Matt Aucoin, Conductor
Daniel James, Flute
Jonathan Cohen, Clarinet
Chelsea Starbuck Smith, Violin
Patrick McGuire, Cello
Gwenllian Llyr, Harp

Dawn

Hailed as a “composer with a career to follow” by the Ridgefield Press, Paul Frucht is an American composer whose music has been acclaimed for its “sense of lyricism, driving pulse, and great urgency” (WQXR) and “excellent orchestration” (Ridgefield Press). His music has been commissioned and performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra, Chelsea Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Weill-Cornell Music and Medicine Orchestra, Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra, American Modern Ensemble, Asian American New Music Institute, Euclid Quartet, Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, LONGLEASH Trio, New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute, Utah Arts Festival, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, and the Eastern Music Festival among numerous other performing ensembles and organizations.
Upcoming projects include a set of songs for the Boston Opera Collaborative, a new string quartet for the Ulysses Quartet, and the premiere of an orchestral song cycle to be written for bass-baritone Kenneth Kellogg, commissioned by Yuga Cohler and the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra.
Paul has been the recipient of a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Brian H. Israel Prize from the Society of New Music, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, Juilliard’s Palmer Dixon, Arthur Friedman, and Gena Raps Prizes, the American Composers Orchestra’s 2016 Audience Choice Award and has been recognized for his work by the American Modern Ensemble, the Nashville Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Red Note New Music Festival, Chelsea Symphony, and Periapsis Music and Dance.
 Paul prioritizes cultural engagement in his music and artistic leadership activities. He is the artistic director of the Charles Ives Music Festival (CIMF) based in Ridgefield, CT, a position he has held since he founded the program in 2015. CIMF explores the rich history of Ives and his legacy, American music, through dynamic artist concerts and interactive educational events, with a particular focus on presenting the works of living American composers. In addition to CIMF, these goals have been realized through his role as the organizer and director for the 2016 Danbury Concert Across America to End Gun Violence, his representation of the Juilliard School and the United States at the Kyoto International Music Festival, and through his work, Dawn, which was written in memory of Sandy Hook Elementary School Principal, Dawn Hochsprung. The work has received over 15 performances and has been heard around the United States. He has also appeared for interviews with the Hartford Courant, “Fifteen” Questions, and CT NPR and his writing has appeared in NewMusicBox, an online publication.
A passionate educator of all ages, he has been a faculty member at New York University’s Steinhardt School since 2015 and before that was a music theory teaching fellow in Juilliard’s College Division and an instructor in Juilliard’s Pre-College Division. From 2014-15, he was composer-in-residence at the pianoSonoma Music Festival for amateur adult musicians and in 2015, founded the Chamber Music Intensive, for both children and adults, which is now part of the Charles Ives Music Festival. He was also the Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence for the 2017-18 season, where he worked with student musicians and led readings of student composers’ orchestral works. Paul received his doctoral of musical arts and master of music degrees at the Juilliard School and a B.M. from New York University. His two primary teachers have been Robert Beaser and Justin Dello Joio.

Paul Frucht

Pinned to spotlight

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