Ronald Rudkin
Phone: (336)770-3356
Email: rudkinr@ncarts.edu

Ronald Rudkin, saxophonist and clarinetist, is director of the Jazz Program and instructor in Music Theory. He holds a Master of Music from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Music from East Carolina University, where he received a Distinguished Alumnus Award.

In addition to an active performing career with his own jazz groups and dance band, Mr. Rudkin plays clarinet in the Winston-Salem Symphony and has appeared with the North Carolina, Greensboro, Charlotte, and Western Piedmont symphonies. An experienced band leader and arranger, he has led groups in performance with numerous celebrities from the worlds of entertainment, pop and jazz. His pops arrangements and compositions for symphony orchestra featuring solo saxophone or saxophone quartet have been performed by regional orchestras as well as orchestras around the United States and abroad.

Mr. Rudkin is a recipient of the Jazz Composers Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council, and has toured and performed with legendary jazz drummer Max Roach and drummer Thelonius (T.S.) Monk Jr. in public schools across North Carolina as part of an educational program. As a big band musician he has performed with the orchestras of Glenn Miller, Peter Duchin, and Les and Larry Elgart; the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra; the Atlantic Jazz Orchestra; and his own big band, the Ron Rudkin Orchestra.

An active jazz educator and clinician, Mr. Rudkin has directed the North Carolina School of the Arts Jazz Ensemble in concert at jazz festivals, concert halls and events across the Southeast. He has led student jazz groups on summer tours in Europe as part of NCSA's International Music Program, and each summer he leads an all-star NCSA alumni jazz group at Manteo, N.C., as part of the school's summer festival series. He also conducts workshops in jazz improvisation and jazz ensemble performance at public schools and elsewhere across North Carolina.