Bernd Ruf (born 27 September 1964 in
Offenburg
Offenburg (; "open borough" - coat of arms showing open gates; Low Alemmanic: ''Offäburg'') is a city in the state of Baden-Württemberg, in south-western Germany. With nearly 60,000 inhabitants (2019), it is the largest city and the administrat ...
) is a German conductor and clarinettist. In 2004, Ruf was appointed a new professorship in popular music, jazz, and world music at the
Lübeck University of Music.
Life and works
Bernd Ruf grew up in
Gengenbach
Gengenbach (; ) is a city in the district of Ortenau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and a popular tourist destination on the western edge of the Black Forest, with about 11,000 inhabitants.
Gengenbach is well known for its traditional Alemannic "f ...
,
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...
in a musical environment of classical and popular music. During his final two years of school he attended a two-year extracurricular conducting course. After his
Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...
, he studied school music, diploma in
music education
Music education is a field of practice in which educators are trained for careers as primary education, elementary or secondary education, secondary music teachers, school or music conservatory ensemble directors. Music education is also a rese ...
,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
and
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...
,
music director
A music director, musical director or director of music is a person responsible for the musical aspects of a performance, production, or organization. This would include the artistic director and usually chief conductor of an orchestra or concert ...
and
musicology
Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, ...
in
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...
and
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
. Following his musical director degree, Bernd Ruf conducted musicals (''
Miss Saigon
''Miss Saigon'' is a sung-through musical theatre, stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera ''Madama Butterfly'', and similarly tells th ...
'', ''
Les Misérables
''Les Misérables'' (, ) is a 19th-century French literature, French Epic (genre), epic historical fiction, historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published on 31 March 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. '' ...
'', ''
Dance of the Vampires
''The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck'' (shortened to ''The Fearless Vampire Killers''; originally released in the United Kingdom as ''Dance of the Vampires'') is a 1967 comedy horror film directed by Roman ...
'', ''
Disney's Beauty and the Beast
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...
'', ''
The Lion King
''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical coming-of-age drama film directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, produced by Don Hahn, and written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. Produced by Walt Disney ...
''), assisted
Dennis Russell Davies
Dennis Russell Davies (born April 16, 1944, in Toledo, Ohio) is an American conductor and pianist. He is chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic and of the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Biography
Davies studied piano and conducting at ...
at the
Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and at the
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival () is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer, for five weeks starting in late July, in Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart's operas are a focus of ...
, and undertook the conception and direction of youth concerts at the
Stuttgarter Philharmoniker
The Stuttgarter Philharmoniker (Stuttgart Philharmonic) is the symphony orchestra of Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1924, they play regular concert series including youth concerts in Stuttgart, as well as guest ...
from 1999 to 2004.
As a freelance director, he developed the Crossover Symphony series: orchestral programs with African, Asian, and Latin American musicians in cooperation with jazz and rock musicians. He has conducted several premieres in Stuttgart with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and in New York with the German-American Chamber Orchestra for composer and violinist Gregor Hübner. He has appeared as a guest with SWR Rundfunkorchester
Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern (; ) is a town in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfurt am Main, 666 kilometers (414 m ...
, the
NDR Radiophilharmonie
The NDR Radiophilharmonie is a German radio orchestra, affiliated with the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) in Hanover, the capital of Lower Saxony. The orchestra principally gives concerts in the ''Großer Sendesaal'' of the '' Landesfunkhaus Niede ...
Hanover, and the Bochumer Symphoniker.
Ruf is a guest conductor with the Staatskapelle Halle, the Jenaer Philharmonie, and the Württembergische Philharmonie
Reutlingen
Reutlingen (; ) is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous Reutlingen (district), district of Reutlingen. As of June 2018, it had an estimated population of 116,456. Reutlingen has a Reutlingen University, univ ...
. He has worked with
Jon Lord
John Douglas "Jon" Lord (9 June 194116 July 2012) was an English keyboardist and composer. In 1968, Lord co-founded the hard rock band Deep Purple. Lord performed on most of the band's most popular songs; he and drummer Ian Paice were the only ...
,
Roger Hodgson
Charles Roger Pomfret Hodgson (born 21 March 1950) is an English singer, musician and songwriter, best known as the former co-frontman and founding member of the progressive rock band Supertramp. Hodgson composed and sang the majority of the ba ...
,
Ian Anderson
Ian Scott Anderson (born 10 August 1947) is a British musician best known for being the chief vocalist, Flute, flautist, and acoustic guitarist of the British rock band Jethro Tull (band), Jethro Tull. He is a multi-instrumentalist who also p ...
,
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...
,
Randy Brecker
Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock music, rock, and R&B.
Early life
Brecker was ...
,
Joe Lovano
Joseph Salvatore Lovano (born December 29, 1952)"Joe Lovano." ''Contemporary Musicians''. Vol. 13. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 1994. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, May 5, 2017. is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist. T ...
, and
Charlie Mariano
Carmine Ugo Mariano (November 12, 1923 – June 16, 2009) was an American jazz saxophone, saxophonist who focused on the alto saxophone, alto and soprano saxophone. He occasionally performed and recorded on flute and nadaswaram as well.
Biogra ...
on his orchestral crossover projects. He is responsible for organizing and conducting the annual open-air event Bridges to the Classics at the
Handel Festival in Halle. He has led the German Pops Orchestra and the European Art Orchestra as music director since 1999. Both orchestras have made an international name for themselves with their studio recordings and regularly perform classical, crossover, film, and pop productions for international record labels. He conducts orchestral soundtracks for cinema, television, and games (
The Settlers
''The Settlers'' () is a City-building game, city-building and real-time strategy video game series created by Volker Wertich in 1993. The The Settlers (1993 video game), original game was released on the Amiga, with subsequent games released p ...
, Anno,
SpellForce
''SpellForce'' is a real-time strategy and role-playing series created by Phenomic and currently owned by THQ Nordic. The first release was published by JoWooD Productions and Encore Software in 2003 and THQ Nordic in 2017.
Setting and plot
...
,
Paraworld,
Battleforge,
Darksiders
''Darksiders'' is a hack and slash action-adventure video game franchise created by Vigil Games, now developed by Gunfire Games, which consists of some of the original members of Vigil. The series is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, where ma ...
, House of the Lion).
As a clarinettist he draws on influences from
klezmer
Klezmer ( or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these wou ...
, jazz, southeastern European folk music, and classical music. Improvisation is a major part of his music. In 1987 Ruf joined the ensemble
Tango Five (de), which was founded two years previously in
Ravensburg
Ravensburg ( or ; Swabian: ''Raveschburg'') is a city in Upper Swabia in Southern Germany, capital of the district of Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg.
Ravensburg was first mentioned in 1088. In the Middle Ages, it was an Imperial Free City and ...
. The members of this ensemble have remained constant since 1995: Gregor Hübner (violin), Veit Hübner (double bass), Karl Albrecht Fischer (piano), and Bernd Ruf (clarinet). Numerous tours have taken the ensemble as far afield as the United States, South America,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States
Georgia may also refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
, and throughout Europe. On one hand, Tango Five plays scenic musical comedy programs in which four musicians tell short, ironic stories using different instruments and
a cappella
Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...
vocals to bridge musical genres. On the other hand, Tango Five plays a repertoire with its roots in southeastern European folk music, klezmer,
gypsy
{{Infobox ethnic group
, group = Romani people
, image =
, image_caption =
, flag = Roma flag.svg
, flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress
, po ...
,
tango
Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Arge ...
, classical music, and jazz.
The cooperation between Tango Five and bandoneonist Raul Jaurena began in 1998 with the album ''Obsecion''. Appearances at tango festivals in Montevideo and Buenos Aires followed. One year later Bernd Ruf wrote and conducted his first Crossover Symphony for the ORF Radio-Symphonie Orchester of Vienna: Latin Symphony in which Jaurena gave his debut performance with a European orchestra as bandoneon soloist. Other tours followed, the Symphonic Tango Night with the
Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra (de) and the tango evening 'Amando a Buenos Aires', which was performed for several weeks in Stuttgart's
Friedrichsbau. Furthermore, Bernd Ruf and Raul Jaurena have performed as a duo under the name JAURENA RUF Project since 2007.
Since 2004 Ruf has headed the field of popular music, jazz, and world music at the
Lübeck Academy of Music, of which he became vice president in May 2011. There he developed the 'Lübeck model', in which jazz and pop are not taught as an independent degree course, but rather as an integral component of classical degree courses. During the 2006 winter semester he temporarily took over the running of the Institute of School Music; since the 2008 winter semester he is now acting head of this institute.
Awards and honors
* 1991: Ravensburger Kupferle (cabaret award) for Tango Five
* 1992: Kleinkunstpreis Baden-Württemberg (3rd place) for Tango Five
* 1995: Scholarship from the Herbert von Karajan Foundation
* 1999: Scholarship from Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg
* 2002: Grammy nomination as a conductor in the Best Classical Crossover Album category for the album ''Paquito D'Rivera – The Clarinettist''
Discography
See also
*
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (ABO) is an Australian period instrument orchestra specialising in the performance of baroque and classical music.
Founders
The orchestra's founder and artistic director is Paul Dyer.
In 2013 Dyer was ...
*
Kammerorchester Basel
The chamber orchestra Kammerorchester Basel was founded in Basel, Switzerland, in 1984. In the tradition of Paul Sacher's ''Basler Kammerorchester'', its focus is on both early music and contemporary classical music. The orchestra plays regularly ...
*
Philharmonia Virtuosi
*
Sodagreen
Sodagreen (; stylized as sodagreen) is a Taiwanese indie band formed in 2001. Its members have been unchanged since 2003. Sodagreen emerged in the Taiwanese indie music scene after receiving the Grand Jury Award in the Hohaiyan Gongliau Rock Fes ...
References
* Ruf, Bernd. ''Miss Saigon'' in Lübbes Musical-Führer, Bergisch-Gladbach, Bastei-Verlag Gustav H. Lübbe GmbH & Co., May 1998.
* Ruf, Bernd. ''Phantom of the Opera'' in Die Musikstunde 9/10, Frankfurt am Main, Verlag Moritz Diesterweg GmbH & Co., 1997.
* Ruf, Bernd. ''Phantom of the Opera'' in Musik und Unterricht, Seelze, Friedrich Verlag GmbH& Co., magazine no. 30, January 1995.
* Tango Five. Württembergische Landesbibliothek 2005,
Sources
*
Jazzpages.comPortrait about Bernd Rufin the magazine Scala, Stuttgart 2 / 2001
External links
Official websiteGermanPops OrchestraTango FiveJAURENA RUF Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruf, Bernd
German male conductors (music)
German jazz clarinetists
Tango in Germany
Baroque musicians
World music musicians
1964 births
Living people
21st-century German conductors (music)
21st-century German clarinetists
21st-century German male musicians
German male jazz musicians
Academic staff of the Lübeck Academy of Music
People from Offenburg