Stanley DeRusha, music education

Mr. DeRusha's involvement in education has included posts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Michigan State University and Hartt School of Music where he conducted both wind ensemble and orchestra. He is a frequent lecturer on conducting at universities and national symposia and has served as conductor and lecturer at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, and the New England Conservatory of Music to name a few. In 1989, he received National Public Radio's "Best Contemporary Music Performance Award" for a concert presented and recorded in New York's Town Hall featuring the Emerson String Quartet and the world premiere of Paul Epstein's Matinee Concerto for Violin and Chamber Orchestra.

American born and trained, he has conducted throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and South America. His credits include numerous American and world premiere performances and he has won the praise of many distinguished composers including William Schumann, Vincent Persichetti, Karel Husa, Ernst Krenek, Joseph Schwantner, Gunther Schuller, John Downey, and George Perle for his interpretation of their music and has also received critical acclaim for his interpretation of the standard repertoire. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Wisconsin, he studied conducting with H. Robert Reynolds and Otto Werner-Mueller and composition with John Downey.

Mr. DeRusha has been Music Director and Conductor of the Sinfonica de Vientos de Boyaca, Colombia, S.A., the Festival Orchestra of Wisconsin, the Stravinsky Players of the Milwaukee Symphony, and the Lansing Chamber Orchestra, and has been interim director of the Orquesta Filharmonica de Bogota and Orquesta Sinfonica de Colombia, S.A. In 1986, he was presented the ORDEN de la LIBERTAD by the Colombian government for his contribution to the arts. He also regularly conducts the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. DeRusha has appeared as soloist with the St. Louis Symphony, the Kenosha Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Woodwind Arts Quintet, the Fine Arts String Quartet, as well as with numerous ensembles throughout the United States. He has conducted in such great halls as the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Gustav Siegel House in Stuttgart, the Teatro Colon in Bogota, Chicago's Orchestra Hall, Jordan Hall in Boston, and Town Hall, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. Mr. DeRusha has appeared on radio and television in the United States, Japan, Europe and South America and can be heard on Orion, Crest, Golden Crest, and Mark Records and on Gasparo Compact Discs.

E-mail: sderusha@butler.edu