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Gity Razaz

2022 Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commission Recipient

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An additional four orchestras performed the work in the 2023-2024 and 2024-25 seasons, part of a 30-orchestra consortium performing works by women composers commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation:

Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and music director Andreas Delfs on September 28 and 30, 2023.

National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa) and music director Alexander Shelley on February 7 and 8, 2024.

Akron Symphony and music director Christopher Wilkins on October 19, 2024.

Berkeley Symphony and music director Joseph Young on June 1, 2025.


Hailed by the New York Times as “ravishing and engulfing,” Gity Razaz’s music ranges from concert solo pieces to large symphonic works. Ms. Razaz’s music has been commissioned and performed by Seattle Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Washington National Opera, National Sawdust, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, former cellist of the Kronos Quartet Jeffrey Zeigler, cellist Inbal Segev, violinist Jennifer Koh, violinist Francesca dePasquale, Metropolis Ensemble, Canada’s National Ballet School, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Symphony Orchestra, New York Choreographic Institute, American Composers Orchestra, and Amsterdam Cello Biennale among others.

Music Director Rafael Payare led the San Diego Symphony in the world premiere of Gity Razaz’s “Methuselah.” Photo by Sandy Huffaker

Programming highlights include a 2021 commission from BBC Symphony Orchestra for the prestigious Last Night of the BBC Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall and an upcoming concerto for world-renowned flautist Sharon Bezaly and the United Strings of Europe. Other commissions have included a full-length ballet for Ballet Moscow, which still receives regular performances ever since its world premiere in Moscow in June of 2017. She was the composer-in-residence for the inaugural season of Brooklyn’s ground-breaking National Sawdust and Chautauqua Opera Company in 2017. Her first short opera was commissioned by Washington National Opera and premiered at the Kennedy Center. Her music for cello and electronics was included in the opening of Seattle Symphony’s Octave 9 in March 2019.

Her compositions have earned numerous national and international awards, such as the 2019 Andrew Imbrie Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters that is “is given to a composer of demonstrated artistic merit in mid-career”, the Jerome Foundation award, the Libby Larsen Prize in 28th International Search for New Music Competition, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Composer Institute, Juilliard Composers’ Orchestra Competition, three ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer awards, ASCAP Plus Award, Juilliard’s Palmer Dixon Award for the outstanding composition of the year in 2010 and 2012, to name a few. Ms. Razaz attended The Juilliard School on full scholarship, and received her Bachelor and Master of Music in Composition under the tutelage of Samuel Adler, Robert Beaser and John Corigliano. She is currently on the composition faculty at Mannes School of Music prep division.

(May 2023)

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Photos Courtesy of Gity Razaz

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