Ruben Naeff

Ruben Naeff is influenced by his background as math graduate and economist. An Amsterdam-born, Brooklyn-based composer, Ruben writes music that embodies a mathematician’s creativity and discipline, an economist’s public awareness and a music lover’s Schwung. In collaboration with scientists, cartoonists, and newspaper de Volkskrant, Ruben released the CD De Bètacanon, a musical canon about the hard sciences. Other interdisciplinary works include The Dancing Dollar about today’s economic crisis and The YouOpera, covering the Internet, including youopera.org that sings a user’s Facebook wall.

Ruben co-founded the West 4th New Music Collective that promotes the work of emerging musicians. His music has been presented by Bang on a Can Marathon and happyChaos, and has been performed in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Latvia, Switzerland, Austria and across the USA. He worked with Signal, JACK Quartet, Contemporaneous, Wild Rumpus, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Deviant Septet, Vigil, Cadillac Moon, Erasmus Kamerkoor, Quatre Bouches, orchestra Con Brio, and such musicians as Lindsay Kesselman (Einstein on the Beach), Nicholas Photinos (eighth blackbird), Jamie Jordan, David Friend, Richard Valitutto and Andy Meyerson.

Ruben holds master’s degrees in math and composition from the University of Amsterdam and New York University, respectively. He studied with Michael Gordon and Daan Manneke, and participated in masterclasses by Louis Andriessen, David Lang, Augusta Read Thomas and Christopher Rouse. He attended the conservatories of Amsterdam and The Hague, and the programs of Aspen Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Bang on a Can, Music11 and the UNL Chamber Music Institute. Ruben received the prestigious HSP Huygens Scholarship and grants from the Netherland-America Foundation, Jerome Fund for New Music and the American Composers Forum, the Van Bijleveltstichting and the Fonds voor de Geld- en Effectenhandel. He earned recognition from Wild Rumpus, Ethel/ClefWorks, Golden Hornet, Renegade Ensemble, Hartford Opera Theatre, Center City Opera, Platypus, Andrew Gerlicher and the UvA Cultural Festival.

Ruben Naeff
For the Under Construction Reading Series I intend to continue my search for a new musical language, test my artistic ideas, and last but not least, have a priceless dialogue with the musicians about both the artistic and the pragmatic side of orchestral writing, during this rare and extraordinary opportunity of workshopping an orchestral work. I hope the piece will be direct, compelling and virtuosic, expressing an individual’s voice in today’s flood of choices, with today’s speed and spectacle, but as clear as a PowerPoint presentation and from a very personal and intimate perspective. Music, like life, is all about finding your way through difficult situations: the more challenging it becomes, the more rewarding the results. I’d like to hear that in music.