Elisheva Schwartz
Elisheva Schwartz is an emerging composer born and based in Winnipeg, MB. A graduate of the University of Ottawa, Elisheva received the Faculty Plaque for highest academic standing in the Bachelor of Music program in 2026. Elisheva’s dual studies in cello and composition reflect her lifelong love of playing and creating music. Elisheva’s Elegiac Rhapsody for Piano Trio was selected for the University of Ottawa’s joint workshop with Chamberfest Ottawa, where it placed runner-up and was professionally reprised at Chamberfest in July 2026. An ARCT in Cello Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Elisheva has enjoyed participating in Contemporary Music Interactive (CMI) twice as both performer and composer, premiering her Two Pieces for Cello and Piano in 2025 and Elegiac Rhapsody in 2026. Two Pieces for Cello and Piano then received professional performance by Ari and Yuri Hooker in Winnipeg’s Music ‘n’ Mavens concert series in February 2026. Elisheva has also had a choral work, Caritas Patiens Est, selected for reading by the Vancouver Chamber Choir in a joint uOttawa workshop in March 2025.
Featured at CMI
Elegiac Rhapsody
Elegiac Rhapsody for Piano Trio begins with a solemn, stately theme shared by violin and cello (the elegy). The melodic shape of this elegy is soon transformed into a faster-moving, folksy second theme that is heard overtop rhapsodic jazz material in the piano. When the elegy is restated, it is without the poise and steadiness of its initial presentation, flowing into a reprise of the second (rhapsodic) theme. The momentum of the rhapsody ultimately takes over, barreling into a frenzied and fragmented conclusion. True to its name, Elegiac Rhapsody carries the listener from an opening atmosphere of melancholia to a frenetically rhythmic conclusion.
Featured at CMI
Two Pieces for Piano and Cello
Two Songs for Cello and Piano was born out of a strong feeling that just underneath pure silence lies the melody I most want to hear, and if I immerse myself in the silence deeply enough I will be able to coax this melody out. Regardless of whether or not I proved the truth of this feeling in writing Two Songs, I feel that pursuit of the stillness required to listen to one’s creative instincts is a worthy end in itself. The content of this music may be taken, then, as an ode to the rejuvenation of solitude, a reflection of its melancholy, an interrogation into the particular sounds of my solitude, or anything else that may strike the listener upon hearing the work.