Music is language and communication on every level. It can be heard, seen and felt. Consciously and unconsciously. From a single, hushed tone to a dense and vigorous soundscape, its energy takes us captive, casts its spell over us, and we succumb to its often unfathomable magic.
A very warm welcome to my website!
Bernd Ruf
BERND RUF is one of today’s most accomplished and creative musical names in the classical crossover field. He is considered one of the pioneers in merging symphonic repertoire with popular genres. For more than three decades he has conducted a broad spectrum of musical ensembles, including symphonic, chamber and string orchestras, big bands and musical orchestras, choirs and symphonic wind orchestras. In all his projects he searches for connection, understanding and interaction from and with musicians from very different cultural spheres. This work has led him to develop his Crossover Symphonies: special orchestral programmes with African, Asian and Latin American musicians, incorporating jazz and rock musicians. He has performed a Latin Night with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna and a Tango Night with the Stuttgart Philharmonic. He has conducted various symphonic concerts at jazz festivals in New York and Stuttgart for the jazz stars Joe Lovano, Randy Brecker and Charlie Mariano. Bernd Ruf and his orchestra accompanied Irish rock bard Chris de Burgh on his rock-symphonic tour through Germany and Switzerland. He has worked with names such as Jon Lord (Deep Purple), Roger Hodgson (Supertramp), Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) and Paul McCartney. A large proportion of the game soundtracks produced in Germany are conducted by him. While working as assistant to Dennis Russell Davies, Bernd Ruf led rehearsals and concerts given by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and at the Salzburg Festival. As a musical conductor, he has conducted performances of Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Beauty and the Beast, Dance of the Vampires and The Lion King. Bern Ruf is a regular guest conductor at the Staatskapelle Halle. For the Handel Festival in Halle, Bernd Ruf developed and has conducted the major annual open-air event ‘Bridges to Classics’ for the past 13 years, with rock legends such as this year’s performance from Gary Brooker or, in previous years, Steve Hackett (Genesis), Bobby Kimball (Toto) and Jimi Jamison (The Survivors). For the past 9 years he has worked as music director of the Filmmusiktagen Sachsen-Anhalt, which takes place each autumn, with a master class for film music composers and a gala concert. His repertoire includes symphonic works from baroque to contemporary with an emphasis on Handel, 20th and 21st century music, American symphony works, and film and game music. Moreover, Bernd Ruf is considered one of the most experienced specialists in orchestral tango and jazz programmes.
BERND RUF has received many awards for his work, including gold and platinum awards for his CD productions, scholarship awards from the Karajan Foundation Berlin and the Arts Foundation Baden-Württemberg. He was nominated for a Grammy at the 44th Grammy Awards in 2001 in the category ‘Best Classical Crossover Album’ for his conducting of the album PAQUITO D’RIVERA – THE CLARINETTIST. In June 2016 he won the Golden Melody Award in Taiwan in the category ‘Best Album’ together with Taiwanese band Sodagreen and his orchestra, the GermanPops Orchestra, for the album recording WINTER ENDLESS.
BERND RUF initiated the German Pops Orchestra (GPO) as music director in 1999 and the European Art Orchestra (EAO) in the following year. Both orchestras have gained an international reputation for their excellent studio work and regularly record classical, crossover, film and pop productions for international recording labels, many of which have gone on to collect awards. Both orchestras were nominated for a Grammy in Los Angeles in 2001 in the category ‘Best Classical Crossover Album’ for their contribution to the album PAQUITO D’RIVERA – THE CLARINETTIST.
The German Pops Orchestra can be heard on over 100 CD recordings and film soundtracks. GPO highlights include concerts with the German pop group PUR in 2004 and 2007 in the Arena auf Schalke with an audience of 70,000 each time. Projects with Sir Paul McCartney, Jon Lord and Silje Nergaard also remain unforgettable events. Other highlights in GPO’s recent history include receiving the Golden Melody Award in Taiwan in June 2016 with top Taiwanese band Sodagreen for WINTER ENDLESS in the category ‘Best Album’.
The European Art Orchestra explores new musical paths between avant-garde and tradition. The upbeat to their work was given by a collaboration with Japanese composer Fumio Yasuda on his CD KAKYOKU, which featured requiem music for photography by Japanese art photographer NOBUYOSHI ARAKI. This was followed by world premieres of compositions by GREGOR HÜBNER and FRANZ DANKSAGMÜLLER for chamber orchestra, choir and soloists as compositions commissioned for the International Bach Academy Stuttgart (Gregor Hübner ‘Bach_21’; 2005) and the Lübeck Buxtehude Year (Gregor Hübner and Franz Danksagmüller ‘bux_21’; 2007).
Both orchestras – the GPO and the EAO – are made up of musicians whose natural repertoire includes both classical and popular styles. The musicians, originating from many different countries, now live in Stuttgart, Lübeck, Cologne, Munich, Hamburg and Berlin, and are amongst the leading specialists in crossover music.
BERND RUF founded the JAURENA RUF PROJECT in 2008 in collaboration with tango master RAUL JAURENA. Through their longstanding cooperation in the Tango Five ensemble, they discovered the uniquely harmonious tonal liaison between bandoneon and clarinet. Today they figure as one of very few duo formations worldwide with this combination of instruments. Their music is a special form of chamber music, with deep roots in tango in all its nuances and influences from classical music, klezmer and improvisation. In addition to four albums with Tango Five, they have also issued three volumes of their TANGO TALES on CD.
The DANKSAGMÜLLER_RUF duo comprises of FRANZ DANKSAGMÜLLER on organ and live electronics and BERND RUF on soprano saxophone. The aim of their collaboration is to enable listeners to experience the effect of baroque music in the present, using means such as improvisation, recomposition, live electronics, historical performance practice and elements from New Music. This allows the two music professors from the University of Music Lübeck to approach the original score, dust off the patina of the past, reveal its core and reassemble it anew. Their CD, released in June 2016 and entitled ‘Buxtehude_21 ON THE BRIDGE’, is dedicated to the music and musical milieu of Dieterich Buxtehude, who lived and worked in Lübeck on the Baltic Sea as one of the foremost composers of the baroque era.
BERND RUF has taught popular music, jazz and world music as a professor at the UNIVERSITY OF MUSIC LÜBECK since 2004. He teaches both academic and practical/artistic courses, including the history of popular music, jazz/pop theory, big band, pop/gospel choir and klezmer ensemble. He also supervises music business events and interdisciplinary projects, which teach students how to conduct projects that span different genres and disciplines independently. Bernd Ruf devised the Lübeck Model, in which students at the University of Music Lübeck can integrate modules from popular music into their classical course of study. From 2006 to 2008, Bernd Ruf provisionally managed the Institute for School Music and thereafter remained connected with the institute as its deputy director. From 2011 to 2013, he held the office of the Vice President of the University of Music Lübeck.
Prior to his professorship in Lübeck, Bernd Ruf taught as a lecturer and project director at the University of Music Trossingen, the State University of Music and the Performing Arts Stuttgart and the University of Music and Theatre ‘Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’ Leipzig.
Influenced by his longstanding experience as a musician and co-producer on numerous CD recordings for a wide range of production companies, BERND RUF founded the label gpARTS in 2009. In the three edition series MUSIC TALES, CROSSOVER SYMPHONY and CLASSICAL CROSSOVER, gpARTS demonstrates the connection between the arts, music in interplay with poetry and the visual arts, while overcoming the traditional genre divisions between classical, jazz and world music. As a producer, Bernd Ruf supports the young klezmer ensemble YXALAG, an ensemble that originated from his work at the University of Music Lübeck, with a total of three CD recordings to date.
BERND RUF was a multi-instrumentalist and singer with the TANGO FIVE ensemble for 27 years. Initiated while studying music together in Stuttgart, the then young students began life playing salon music as a sextet, before finding their way to tango. By the time they received the Baden-Württemberg Cabaret Award in 1992, they had long been amongst the top musicians in the field of music comedy. The ensemble that had been functioning as a quartet since the mid-1990s with violinist GREGOR HÜBNER, bassist VEIT HÜBNER, pianist BOBBI FISCHER and clarinettist BERND RUF put an end to their music comedy career in late 2011. Since then they have been performing world music between jazz, gypsy, klezmer and tango under the name ASSAI. In 2013, ASSAI recorded the CD BALKAN TALES with Serbian accordion virtuoso PETER STAN.
BERND RUF studied at the music universities in Stuttgart and Frankfurt from 1985 to 1995. In Stuttgart he completed degree qualifications in school music, music teaching (clarinet), jazz and popular music (saxophone), musical education (music director and clarinet), before completing his studies with a doctorate postgraduate in musicology.
Bernd Ruf und Franz Danksagmüller sind beide Professoren an der Musikhochschule Lübeck, beide sind herausragende Musiker mit Mut zu spektakulären Experimenten [...].
Es gibt wenige Dirigenten, die sich so intensiv wie Bernd Ruf mit den heute noch lebendigen Klängen der Weltmusik befassen. Seine Mission „vor Ort“ auf allen Kontinenten dieser Erde hat den Professor für Popularmusik, Jazz und Weltmusik auch in Jena zu einer bekannten Persönlichkeit werden lassen.
More dates are in preparation
gpARTS
Hendrik Czaster
office@germanpops.de
www.germanpops.de
www.berndruf.de
www.jaurena-ruf.com
Peenestieg 1-3
D-23554 Lübeck
Phone +49 (0) 451 / 808 505 60