The fall issue of The Bardian, the alumni magazine of Ran's alma mater, includes a feature on Ran. Titled "All That Is Blake," the story, by Mikhail Horowitz, highlights Ran's years at Bard, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1960.

An excerpt: "At Bard, Ran famously connected with the late vocalist Jeanne Lee to create the Newest Sound Around, which atomized such familiar tunes as 'Summertime' and 'Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child' and then reconfigured them in ways that were indelibly tender as they were mesmerizing. But Lee was not his only source of inspiration while in Annandale. 'There were two musical faculty members who were very sympathetic and offered me a great deal of insight, even if their field of expertise was not improvisation--Clair Leonard and Kate Wolff,' he says. 'Both were extremely flexible, sensitive, patient, yet also goading.'"

Horowitz also discusses Ran's most recent album, All That Is Tied. "'Sontagism' lasts all of 59 seconds, yet Blake's deliberate ruminations in the upper register suggest a lucid, questioning sensibility that evokes the late writer and thinker Susan Sontag, whom he remembers hearing speak at Bard."