Carmel Raz

Carmel Raz Carmel Raz composes, performs and researches music. Her works have been performed by the Arditti, Molinari, Carmel and Pacifica Quartets, the Meitar Ensemble, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, and the Orkest de Ereprijs throughout Europe, Israel and North America. She has been commissioned by Musica Nova, the Omaha Area Youth Philharmonic, the Millennium Chamber Players and Israel Chamber Music Institute, and her music has been broadcast on Israeli, American, and European radio. She has received grants from Meet the Composer, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, ASCAP, the Rabinovitch Foundation, the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and the Tel-Aviv Academy of Music, as well as top awards in the Musica Donum Dei and the Sokolof Javitch Composition Competitions.

On violin, Carmel has been featured as a chamber musician at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, and the Kennedy Center. She has performed with the Israel Contemporary Players, the Israel Contemporary String Quartet, the Tel-Aviv Soloists Ensemble, the Meitar Ensemble, the Ensemble Modern Academy, and Red Light New Music and at a variety of international music festivals. She was concertmaster of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and of the Young Israel Philharmonic, and was a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, touring across Europe and Asia under the batons of Boulez, Barenboim and Abbado.

In addition to her activities as a classical performer, Carmel is active as an improviser in a variety of genres, ranging from Jazz to free improv and world music. She has collaborated with artists including Omer Avital, Eran Zur, Tamir Muskat, and Yoyo Ma's Silk Road Project, and played at the Winter Jazz Fest, Blue Note, Zinc, the Green Mill, Iridium, the Velvet Lounge and the Jazz Gallery. She also tours with the Jewish music band Tafillalt, with whom she has performed across Europe, and can be heard on recordings on Hatav Hashmini, Apprise, Aural Terrains, Imaginary Chicago, and Interval labels.

Born in 1982, Carmel grew up in the United States and Israel. She holds a Diplom in violin performance from the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin, Germany, and a Masters degree in composition from the University of Chicago. She is currently a PhD candidate in music theory at Yale University. As an academic, she has received the Whiting Dissertation Prize Fellowship, a Mellon Graduate Achievement Award, and a fellowship from the Baden Württemberg Stiftung. She has published articles in the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie and the Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies.
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