A special series of concerts will commemorate a quarter of a century career

A trio of concerts slated for the beginning of May will cap the career of Dr. David Rudge at the School of Music at SUNY Fredonia.

After nearly 25 years, Dr. Rudge is retiring as Director of Orchestras and Opera.

Former School of Music Director Mel Unger noted, "With uncompromising musical standards, Dr. Rudge built an impressive orchestral program during his time at Fredonia. His well-balanced concert programs were popular with audiences — the repertoire expressively interpreted with a fluent gestural technique."

School of Music alum of the Class of 2003, Dr. Essena Setaro, noted, "My freshman year was also David Rudge’s first year as Orchestra Director at Fredonia. In the decades since, he continues to have massive impact on my life and has been my greatest inspiration as a musician, teacher, and human...He has been there to mentor so many of us over the decades, and his honest advice and encouragement both musically and beyond have made such a difference in the lives of so many of his students."

All three concerts are free and will be live-streamed. The public is invited to attend.

The Fredonia College Chamber Orchestra, founded by Dr. Rudge his first year at Fredonia, will play its final concert of the year on Tuesday, May 3, at 8 p.m. in Rosch Recital Hall. The program features 17th century works by early Baroque composers Marini and Purcell, beautiful Romantic works of Elgar and Kalinnikov, and 20th century satirical, ground-breaking pieces by Shostakovich and Charles Ives. The program closes with the Petite Suite of Impressionist composer, Claude Debussy.

The Fredonia College Symphony will present its final concert under the direction of Rudge and graduating Assistant Conductor Andrew Wolffking. on Saturday, May 7, at 8 p.m. in King Concert Hall. The program will open with Leonard Bernstein’s high-powered Overture to “West Side Story.” Other works on the program will be the dark, brooding “Tangazo” by “Nuevo Tango” composer, Astor Piazzolla, and the even darker, harrowing “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” by 20th century avant garde composer, Krzysztof Penderecki. The concert comes to a rousing close with Suite No. 2 from Manuel de Falla’s “El Sombrero con Tres Picos” (The Three-Cornered Hat), a Spanish masterwork of rhythmic intensity.

The Improv. Collective, which had its 20th anniversary during the pandemic, will again be on stage with an evening of free improvisation on Monday, May 9, at 8 p.m., in Rosch Recital Hall. It will be a performance of spontaneous self-expression, created in the moment, without previous planning. Rudge urges music lovers to “come and be surprised.”

About Dr. David Rudge

Dr. Rudge has conducted orchestras on five continents to critical acclaim. As Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Guatemala he was credited with the dramatic rebirth of that orchestra.  He founded the Eastminster Chamber Orchestra and was Assistant Conductor of the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Columbia Lyric Opera and Ballet, and the South Carolina Philharmonic.

In 1996, as an Artistic Ambassador for the U.S. Department of State, he spent two months in Damascus, Syria, conducting the National Symphony and Chamber Orchestra.

Rudge has conducted the Opera and Orchestra at the Rome Festival, Italy, and has guest conducted the Dialecto Urbano Chorus, Caracas, Venezuela, the Giurgiu Philharmonic (Romania), the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia, the North Carolina Governor’s School Orchestra, the Poughkeepsie Chamber Orchestra and the Southern Tier Symphony.

Rudge was awarded a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship to conduct in the Middle East. As a Senior Fellow, he spent many months in Egypt conducting the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, the Cairo Opera Orchestra, Opera Chorus, and teaching at the National Conservatoire of Music. He returned to conduct the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. The Cairo press has called him “a proper maestro. . . grandly expressive.”

He has played as both a violinist and violist with a number of orchestras and chamber ensembles both at home and abroad. He has also pursued baroque performance practice, as both a violinist and conductor, with the directors and members of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.

Rudge has given numerous classes in conducting and violin internationally and has been coach and guest conductor of the Boston, Columbia, Houston and Costa Rican youth symphonies, as well as many student honor-orchestras, such as the New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois All-State Orchestras. He was a faculty member at the Conductor’s Institute at Bard, and at the National ASTA Conference. He is the Co-Director of the Training Program for Music for People and teaches Free-Improvisation at the School of Music.