Shulamit Ran is a Pultizer-Prize-winning, Israeli-American composer and was a long-time professor of composition at the University of Chicago. Winds from the east are used as symbology for deadly or chaotic events in biblical writings and poetry. East winds are also geographically ominous for Ran’s native Israel, originating from the Arabian desert and carrying high gusts and drought. “East Wind” is undoubtedly inspired by this connotation but mixes in moments of calm tranquility among sections marked “wild,” perhaps alluding to the contemplative nature of wind in addition to its disastrous qualities.
Philip Snyder received a DMA from the University of South Carolina in 2018.