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Rufus Müller

Rufus Müller is a sought-after tenor who was acclaimed by the New York Times, following a performance at Carnegie Hall, as “easily the best tenor I have heard in a live Messiah.” He has performed internationally in operas, oratorios, and recitals. He performed the world premiere of Jonathan Miller’s acclaimed production of the St. Matthew Passion, which was broadcast on BBC TV and recorded for the United label; he repeated the role in three revivals of the production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Müller is also a leading recitalist, performing worldwide with pianist Maria João Pires, notably in an extended Schubertiade in London’s Wigmore Hall, and on tour in Spain, Germany, and Japan with Schubert’s Winterreise. Recent performances also include Bach’s Passions and Handel’s Messiah in New York, Princeton, Toronto, Montreal, Washington, D.C., Carmel Bach Festival, Royal Albert Hall, and Canterbury Cathedral; Monteverdi’s Vespers, Schubert’s Winterreise, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Ottavio) in Tokyo; Beethoven’s Choral Symphony in Pennsylvania; the title role in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Haydn’s Creation in London, as well as recitals and master classes in Japan, Germany, and the United States. Born in Kent, England, Müller was a choral scholar at New College, Oxford, and studied in New York with the late Thomas LoMonaco. In 1985 he won first prize in the English Song Award in Brighton and, in 1999, was a prize winner in the Oratorio Society of New York Singing Competition. A list of performances and recordings can be found at his website, rufusmuller.com. BA, MA, University of Oxford. At Bard since 2006.

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Ryan MacEvoy McCullough

Born in Boston and raised behind the “Redwood Curtain” of northern California, pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough has developed a variegated career as soloist, vocal and instrumental collaborator, composer, recording artist, and pedagogue. Ryan’s music-making encompasses work with historical keyboards, electro-acoustic tools and instruments, and close collaborations with some of today’s foremost composers. His longstanding collaborative (and life) partnership with soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon has yielded a substantial crop of new art song repertoire, as well as his work in contemporary ensemble and commissioning project HereNowHear, 2017 recipient of a Fromm Foundation award.

Ryan’s growing discography features many world premiere recordings, including solo piano works of Milosz Magin (Acte Prealable), Andrew McPherson (Secrets of Antikythera, Innova), John Liberatore (Line Drawings, Albany), Nicholas Vines (Hipster Zombies from Mars, Navona), art song and solo piano music of John Harbison and James Primosch with Ms. Fitz Gibbon (Descent/Return, Albany), and art song by Sheila Silver (Beauty Intolerable, Albany, also with Ms. Fitz Gibbon). He is also founder of False Azure Records, which released its inaugural album in 2022 featuring music by Katherine Balch and Dante De Silva (The Labor of Forgetting), and will be releasing a second album in 2023 featuring music by Christopher Stark, John Liberatore, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Ryan has also appeared on PBS’s Great Performances (Now Hear This, “The Schubert Generation”) and is an alumnus of NPR’s From the Top.

As concerto soloist Ryan has appeared frequently with orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Festival Orchestra, Colburn Conservatory Orchestra, Orange County Wind Symphony, and World Festival Orchestra, with such conductors as George Benjamin, Gisele Ben-Dur, Fabien Gabel, Leonid Grin, Anthony Parnther, Larry Rachleff, Mischa Santora, and Joshua Weilerstein. Ryan has collaborated frequently with the Mark Morris Dance Group, contemporary ensembles eighth blackbird and yarn/wire, Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, and has been a returning artist at the Tanglewood Music Center, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, and Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. He will join the roster of senior artists at the Marlboro Music Festival in summer 2023.

As a teacher, Dr. McCullough has worked to cultivate the kind of multidisciplinary training which will be critical for the next generation of musical artists. He has taught masterclasses in piano performance at Bucknell University, New England Conservatory, Notre Dame University, Cal State Northridge, Washington State University, and Humboldt State University, and has served as piano instructor and chamber music coach at Cornell University and Bard College Conservatory. Additionally, he has developed four unique intersectional courses: Musical Technologies and the Natural World (Cornell University), an upper division creative seminar exploring the relationships between culture and conceptions of place; The Active Listener (Bard College Conservatory), a course focused on field recording techniques and aesthetics; Technological Musicianship (Cornell University), a general-access course designed during the Covid-19 pandemic to train musicians with the skills needed to produce high-quality digital content in a changing professional landscape; and FutureSounds, a composition seminar and instrument building workshop designed to explore the fundamentals of musical syntax and creativity.

He holds his Bachelor of Music from Humboldt State University (studying with Deborah Clasquin), Artist Diplomas from the Colburn Conservatory and the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto (John Perry and David Louie), a Masters in Music from University of Southern California (John Perry), and Master of Fine Arts and Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University (Xak Bjerken). He currently teaches at Bard College Conservatory.

Ryan currently lives in Kingston, NY, with his wife, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon, and cat Coquille.