User:Composerudin

Andrew Rudin(prounounced "roo-DEEN") www.composerudin.com, was born April 10, 1939 in Newgulf, Texas, the only child of Margaret Anderson Rudin and Paul Gustave Rudin. He began the study of music with Lila Crow, who taught him piano and rudimentary music theory. When the family moved to Beaumont, Texas in 1951, he enlarged his studies learning cello and trombone in the South Park school system, where he began to compose in his 14th year. While still a high school student, he became a member of the Beaumont Symphony as a cellist, and together with classmate Jim Hayes, penned an original musical comedy,"Triple Doublecross". As an undergraduate at The University of Texas, he studied composition with Kent Kennan, Clifton Williams and Paul Pisk, while continuing study of the cello with Horace Britt, and piano with Joseph Bratcher. He was the youngest student to have a composition represented on the university's Southwestern Symposium of Contemporary American Music, with his "Waltz and Toccata" for two pianos. A year later in 1959, his "Variations for String Orchestra"became his first professional public performance, when it was played by the Beaumont Symphony. In 1960, his first piece for full orchestra, "Manifesto" was heard at the Southwestern Symposium and showing it to George Rochberg, soon to become chairman of the music dept. at The University of Pennsylvania led to a scholarship to U Penna to study with Rochberg. Before leaving The University of Texas, Rudin wrote the songs and incidental music for a production by the UT drama dept.for Brecht's "The Good Woman of Setzuan", directed by Francis Hodge (the first American staging of Eric Bentley's translation). Rudin received a B Mus from the University of Texas in 1962. Continuing his studies in Philadelphia at The University of Pennsylvania, George Rochberg was his principle teacher. During these years he worked as well with Ralph Shapey, Henry Weinberg, Hugo Weisgall, and for one semester, Karlheinz Stockhausen. He received an MA from Penn in 1964. Through his association with the Alwin Nikolais Dance Company, he saw the first Moog Synthesizer, the prototype of which Nikolais had purchased on the advice of his sound technician, James Seawright. On Rudin's suggestion, Robert Moog visited U Penn and was commissioned to build one of his first large studio installations there, housed in the basement of The Annenberg School of Communications. Here Rudin produced in 1966 his work for film and tape "Il Giuoco", which Robert Moog described as "the first, original, large-scale composition produced on the Moog Synthesizer". After its premiere in 1966, it was chosen by the ISCM as a US entrant in the 5th Bienale of the City of Paris. A year later, a second such work, for film and tape, "Paideia" led, on recommendation from Moog, to a commission from Nonesuch Records in 1968 for an original composition specifically composed for LP Record, "Tragoedia" (Nonesuch LP #71198). It was described by critic Alfred Frankenstein, writing in High Fidelity Magazine, as "The best large-scale electronic work I have ever heard. In Andrew Rudin's hands the electronic idiom finally comes of age." In 1970, Rudin's "Lumina", a ballet for orchestra and synthesized tape sounds, was premiered by Maurice Kaplow with the Pennsylvania Ballet, and subsequently taken on tour with the company. Rudin's synthesized works attracted the attention of numerous modern dance choreographers, including Louis Falco, Jeff Duncan, Murray Louis, Dance Theatre Workshop, and The London Contemporary Dance Theatre. Eventually Rudin became music assistant to Alwin Nikolais, with whom he collaborated on the works "Styx", "Triad", "Arporisms" and "Guignol". For choreographer Jeff Duncan he produced "Shore Song"(premiered Riverside Church 1972) and a year later, the full-evening "View" (Westbeth, NYC). In 1972, his one-act opera, "The Innocent" for which Rudin not only wrote the music, but created the literary "collge" that was its text, and also designed the sets, costumes, lighting, and photographic projections. It was produced at Philadelphia's Walnut Theatre by Tito Capobianco, with choreography by Ray Broussard of the Nikolais company. Theodore Antoniou conducted. In 1975, pianist Lydia Artymiw commissioned and gave the first performance of "Museum Pieces" at Washington's Kennedy Center for the Arts. In this same year, Rudin began work on a full-length opera based on Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters", with a libretto by opera scholar and author William Ashbrook. Completion of this full-length opera was not accomplished until 1985, though sizeable excerpts of it were presented in concert at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1981 and again at Symphony Space (NYC) in 1984, to enthusiastic reviews in The New York Times. When his violin concerto, "Canto di Ritorno" was premiered in Philadelphia by Orchestra 200l, with violinist Diane Monroe, critic Michael Caruso described Rudin as "an important presence in the local contemporary music scene for the past four decades. His contributions to the modern canon have been eagerly awaited and happily appreciated. That was certainly the case with "Canto di Ritorno"…. Many of the moods established reveal a soulful poignance that touches the heart while others thrill the senses through pointilistic splashes of color.” Still more recently, at the Natiional Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, critic Stephen Brookes, of the Washington Post wrote, "The high point of the evening was the world premiere of Andrew Rudin's "Concerto for Piano and Small Orchestra". Rudin has a gift for the kind of gesture that grabs you by the ears and won't let go, the music building in power as its inherent possibilities unfold. Extroverted, engaging and driven by an almost heroic sense of drama, it received a bravura performance from pianist Marcantonio Barone." Violist Brett Deubner gave the first performance of Rudin's Viola Sonata in NYC in Dec. of 2008, and will play the premiere of his "Concerto for Viola, strings, harp, piano and percussion" in Philadelphia's Kimmel Center-Perleman Theatre in May of 2009.  From 1964 until 200l, Rudin was a professor at what is now called The University of the Arts(Philadelphia), where he estabished and directed The Electronic Music Center.  From 1981-1984, he was on the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School of Music.  Upon retiring from U Arts in 200l, Rudin became a member of the board of directors for Orchestra 200l, where he serves on the executive committee.  Beginning in 1964, Rudin has had eight residencies at the MacDowell Colony, where, in 2007-08 he was made the Margaret Lee Crofts fellow. His professional affiliation is BMI. He has lived with his partner, Tom Queenan, in Allentown, New Jersey, since 1992, and continues to compose extensively.