Adrienne Elisha

Adrienne Elisha (1958-2017), a native of Glen Cove NY, studied violin and composition at Indiana University. She earned an Artist Diploma in Viola Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music and a doctorate in Composition at the University of Buffalo. As a performer, she specialized in the performance of contemporary music, playing in new-music ensembles such as the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Slee Sinfonietta, as well as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.  In 2008, she was invited to Bern, Switzerland, to perform with the Paul Klee Ensemble in the world premiere of Tristan Murail’s Liber fulguralis at the Zentrum Paul Klee.

Elisha’s cello concerto The Cry of the Dove was premiered by her brother Steven Elisha and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in 2000.  A repeat performance with the Grand Rapids Symphony under David Lockington followed three years later. Other works of hers were performed by the New York New Music Ensemble, the Chamber Orchestra of Boston, and the Galveston Symphony, to name but a few.

Adrienne Elisha held residencies in the legendary dune shacks of Cape Cod, at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough NH, as well as at the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy. In 2009, Peter Eötvös selected her for a five-month composer residency at the Herrenhaus in Edenkoben, Germany.