About

“Classical music doesn’t get better than this” and “One of the fresher voices…” declares the NY Times about Guggenheim Fellow Tamar Muskal’s music. Muskal’s music was performed by the Jerusalem Symphony, Westchester Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Richard Stolzman, Borromeo String Quartet, Colorado String Quartet, Steve Schick, Music From Copland House, Eighth Blackbird, Ethos Percussion Group, and many others.

From 2002-2005 Muskal was Composer-in-Residence of the education division with the Westchester Philharmonic. In that capacity she wrote pieces for narrator and orchestra based on poems and drawings by kids from Westchester. Muskal’s interest in incorporating interactive art in her composition lead to numerous collaboration with artist and NYU professor Daniel Rozin; together they created Mirrors, a piece for the Eighth Blackbird Ensemble for three interactive digital artistic videos, live camera and ensemble; Facing the Automaton, a concerto for Steve Schick and the La Jolla SummerFest players for solo percussion, interactive kinetic sculpture and ensemble; and currently they are working on a piece for solo soprano, interactive kinetic sculpture and orchestra for the American Composers Orchestra.

“Classical music doesn’t get better than this” and “One of the fresher voices…” declares the NY Times about Guggenheim Fellow Tamar Muskal’s music. Born and raised in Israel and lives in the United States, Muskal’s music harmonizes the unique cultural aspects of both places. Her music is shaped by/around contrapuntal interaction, carefully structured and with great attention for details. Muskal’s music was performed by the Jerusalem Symphony, Westchester Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Richard Stolzman, Borromeo String Quartet, Colorado String Quartet, Steve Schick, Music From Copland House, Eighth Blackbird, Ethos Percussion Group, and many others.

From 2002-2005 Muskal was Composer-in-Residence of the education division with the Westchester Philharmonic. In that capacity she wrote pieces for narrator and orchestra based on poems and drawings by kids from Westchester.

Muskal’s interest in incorporating interactive art in her composition lead to numerous collaboration with artist and NYU professor Daniel Rozin; together they created Mirrors, a piece for the Eighth Blackbird Ensemble for three interactive digital artistic videos, live camera and ensemble; Facing the Automaton, a concerto for Steve Schick and the La Jolla SummerFest players for solo percussion, interactive kinetic sculpture and ensemble; and are currently working on a piece for solo soprano, interactive kinetic sculpture and orchestra for the American Composers Orchestra.

Muskal is active as a film composer. She writes music for historic black and white silent films and documentaries. Her music is featured in DVD collections of historic films by women, released by Kino Classics.

Muskal is a recipient of the Charles Ives Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, Theodore Front Prize from IAWM, four awards from Yale School of Music: the John Day Jackson Prize, the Wood Chandler Memorial Prize, Irving S. Gilmore Prize and the Lucy G Moses Prize, awards from the Third Millennium and Left Coast Ensembles, and ASCAP Young Composer Award, and grants from numerous organizations including the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, Discovery grant from the Opera America, Jerome Foundation, Meet the Composer, New Music USA, ASCAP and the American Composers Forum. Her work The Yellow Wind for Israeli and Palestinian vocalists, solo ney, narrator, and orchestra was nominated for a Pulitzer prize in 2015.

Recent and future commissions and collaborations include an opera with director-librettist Daniel Kramer (former artistic director of the English National Opera), a concerto for solo percussion, interactive kinetic sculpture and ensemble for the La Jolla SummerFest, a flute concerto for the Symphonova, a piece for soprano, interactive kinetic sculpture and orchestra for the American Composers Orchestra, a theater music for a play directed by Elena Araoz, an oratorio with the Israeli librettist Michael Gurevitch, and music for a graphic novel by Stavit Allweis.

Tamar attended the Yale School of Music, the city University of New York and the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance.

A selection of Critical Praise of Muskal’s music:

[Muskal’s] Frederic Variations “…as I listened to the pianist Benjamin Hochman’s sensitive, exciting renditions of four contemporary works that explore the form of theme and variation (including one premiere), I kept thinking that classical music doesn’t get better than this.”

(Anthony Tommasini, New York Times)

“Tamar Muskal finds musical opportunity in artist Daniel Rozin’s interactive sculpture, resulting in dynamic display and performance at La Jolla Music Society concert.”

(Christian Hertzog, The Sun Diego Union-Tribune)

“Tamar Muskal’s composition, Shout, contrasted strident and biting clarinet tones with mellow ostinato marimba parts showing each player’s mastery of their instrument. The piece, while highlighting Stolzman’s technical prowess culminating with a dramatic cadenza, blossomed from Yoshida’s unflagging support as an accompanist and foil for her partner.”

(Andy McDonough, NJJazzList.com)

[Muskal’s] Fur Elisa “…the music bubbled in tranquil lines and spurted in brash gestures, slipping fitfully among harmonic centers like a bar of soap sliding through wet fingers.”

(Steve Smith, New York Times)

[Muskal’s] Mirrors “…the ripples and shimmers that filled Muskal’s post-minimalist score were as evanescent as swirling, digitized visuals – dissolving into one another with kaleidoscopic beauty. Mirrors is high-tech music theater at its most inventive and fascinating.”

(John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune)

[Muskal’s] Dmamah “…this is a sort of evocative program music… The piece is full of appealing elements: a rich harmonic sense, passages of driving intensity, and inventive texture like the combined flute and cello harmonics over heavy piano chords near the work’s end.”

(Benjamin Frandzel, San Francisco Classical Voice)

[Muskal’s] Altitudes “…the piece is uncompromising but arresting.”

(James A. Jerritt, Richmond Times)

[Muskal’s] Mar De Leche: “…most impressive for this listener was Israeli-born composer Tamar Muskal’s “Mar De Leche.”

(Richard Kamins of the Hatford Courant)