Performer, conductor and composer, Jean R Perrault is Director of Orchestras and professor of violin/viola at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). Rudy coaches chamber music, conducts both the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, teaches violin and viola, string techniques and the fundamentals of conducting.
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he earned his Master's degree in performance from Temple University, under the tutelage of Helen Kwalwasser. He moved to the New York area and became assistant conductor of the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble while maintaining his post as Principal Guest Conductor of the Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then, Rudy has conducted numerous ensembles including Sinfonietta de Paris, the Karelia State Conservatory Orchestra (Russia), the Conservatoire de Paris région Boulogne-Billancourt (Paris, France), members of the Vincenzo Bellini Conservatory of Palermo (Sicily, Italy) and the Hacettepe Conservatory Symphony Orchestra (Ankara, Turkey). His most recent trip took him to Venezuela where he worked closely with members of "El Sistema" organization (FESNOJIV) conducting master classes and workshops in many of the nuclei surrounding Caracas. He is a frequent panelist on national and international, instrumental and conducting competitions, and has participated in many prestigious music festivals including the International Music Camp, Aspen, Tanglewood, Chautauqua.
Rudy maintains an active schedule and has performed with many different organizations including the U3 Piano Trio, the Duluth-Superior Symphony in Duluth, the New York Virtuosi, the New York Pops, the Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Virtuosi, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Philly Pops and the Broadway show "Beauty and the Beast". Members of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Saint Louis Symphony, the New Horizon Symphony Orchestra, the Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the New York City Housing Authority Orchestra have performed his compositions. Rudy is published by African Music Publishers, a division of Oxford University Press. He is a founding member of the Kako Foundation (www.kakofoundation.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing classical music to underprivileged youth in the US and Haiti.
The past several years he has been editing and orchestrating the piano works of Haitian Classical Composers. His most recent compositions include: "Brother Malcolm" - for cello and piano (a fictitious conversation between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King on the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States), "Exodus" for String Quartet, (recorded by the Borromeo String Quartet and heard on their "Living Archives" label). Future projects include writing a movie soundtrack for the 1904 classic "The Maniac Chase", setting to music three poems of world-renown author Edwidge Danticat, composing a duo for violin and cello (Dialogues for Violin and Cello), a second String Quartet and a ballet (Cérémonie Vodou). His latest radio interview can be heard on the MN Artists website. His latest CD "String Theory" can be found on CDBaby.com
Rudy makes his home in Duluth, Minnesota, with his wife Elizabeth and his two children Ella and Alexandre (a.k.a. Popo).