Gity Razaz: Flowing Down the Widening Rings of Being

Composer Gity Razaz’s new song cycle, Flowing Down the Widening Rings of Being, is given a premiere performance by the Israeli Chamber Project with Lebanese-American tenor Karim Sulayman in Seattle, WA at Meany Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Washington on April 16. Flowing Down the Widening Rings of Being for tenor, violin, viola, cello, clarinet, harp and piano is based on poetry and prose of Rumi and Rainer Maria Rilke. The song cycle is commissioned by the Israeli Chamber Project.

Hailed by The New York Times as “ravishing and engulfing” and named a “Rising Star” by BBC Music Magazine in 2022, Gity Razaz is a composer whose music is deeply influenced by the constantly changing, at times tumultuous, realities of the world, including her identity and personal journey as an immigrant. Gity Razaz’s music has been commissioned and/or performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, Seattle Symphony, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Washington National Opera, National Sawdust, among others. This spring, Razaz’s major orchestral work Methuselah (In Chains of Time), commissioned by the League of American Orchestras and Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, received its Canadian premiere in performances in February by the National Arts Centre Orchestra conducted by Alexander Shelley.