Elena Ruehr says of her music “the idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex.” She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute and composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Known for her vocal music and collaboration with poets, she has written five operas, five cantatas and a number of songs. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School, and has also written extensively for orchestra, chorus, wind ensemble, chamber ensemble, instrumental solo, opera, dance and silent film. Dr. Ruehr has taught at MIT since 1992 and lives in Boston.  Winner of the Baker Undergraduate Teaching Award, she is a committed teacher at MIT.