Gregory Ruffer, Music Department Chair, Voice Instructor
Gregory Ruffer, conductor and music educator, is the Chair of the Music Department at the Patel Conservatory of the Straz Center for the Performing Arts and Chorus Master for Opera Tampa. Most recently he was Director of Choral Activities and Applied Voice at the College of Central Florida where he conducted the vocal ensembles, taught private voice and oversaw the entire vocal music program.
From 2002-2010 Ruffer was the Music Director/Founder of The Orlando Chorale, an 80-voice choir of professional and experienced singers who specialized in singing the music of living composers. In 2005 he founded The Orlando Chamber Singers, the only professional chamber choir of its kind in Central Florida. With these ensembles he championed the performance of new works, including the creation of the Emerging Composers Initiative, a program that gave unpublished composers an opportunity to have their works performed and recorded by one of these Orlando choirs. He also commissioned and premiered new works by Jennifer Higdon (somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond) and Christopher Marshall (High Flight).
Ruffer’s strong commitment to education can be seen in the Artistic Internship Program and Young Artists Choral Scholarship he created with The Orlando Chorale. The programs gave young conductors and singers opportunities to work with The Chorale in rehearsal and performance. He is regularly a clinician for national music festivals and gives workshops and master classes with school students.
In 1996 Ruffer sang with the National Symphony Orchestra and The Washington Chorus under the direction of Leonard Slatkin on the Grammy Award winning CD Of Rage and Remem’brance. Following this recording he became a voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences where he helps to decide Grammy Award winners each year.
As a conductor Ruffer has appeared on stages such as The Kennedy Center, Constitution Hall, Straz Center for the Performing Arts, Atlanta's Symphony Hall, Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, San Jose Performing Arts Center, Sarasota Opera House, Bob Carr Performing Arts Center in Orlando, George Mason University, Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, and at The University of Oslo, Norway, among others. His ensembles have been featured at the Mid-Atlantic ACDA conference, Ohio Music Educators conference and the Florida ACDA conference.
Former professional positions have included: Music Director and Touring Coordinator for Orlando Ballet, Director of Education for Orlando Opera, Conductor of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC, Music Director of the Gulf Coast Men’s Chorus, Director of Potomac Fever men’s a cappella ensemble, Director of Music for College Park United Methodist Church in Maryland, Program Manager for the National Initiative to Preserve America’s Dance and Music Director for the University of Findlay’s Summer Stock Repertory Theatre. He also spent nine years teaching instrumental and vocal music in schools in Ohio and Washington, DC.
Ruffer holds the B.M. and M.M. degrees in music education from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. There he studied conducting with Emily Freeman Brown, Mark Kelly and Mark Munson and voice with Andreas Poulimenos and Virginia Starr. He is currently pursuing the Ed.D. in College Music Teaching from Columbia University Teachers College in New York City. Additionally Ruffer has studied conducting with Dale Warland, Kyprous Markou and Louis Gorelick. He has done additional voice study with Carmen Balthrop and Beverley Rinaldi.