gary ruschman | composer

Gary Ruschman writes accessible, organic, and expressive music for live performance and digital media in a broad variety of styles.

Supporting and heightening dramatic themes with original scores and dynamic arrangements, Gary recently provided music for the 2021 U.S. National Prayer Breakfast and St. Paul Area Synod, BBC Two's docudrama series American Justice, and co-wrote a new oratorio with countertenor Ryland Angel, WILCO guitarist Nels Cline, and jazz accordionist Ben Rosenblum for the University of Minnesota choirs entitled The Call.

Gary's recent release Not Alone is a collection of light-hued instrumental interludes created for comfort: fusing folk, jazz, ambient, and chamber music colors.

Often tapped to compose for spiritual and ecumenical spaces, his settings of the Heart Sutra commissioned by Carol and Richard Weingarten are part of daily practice for English-speaking buddhists around the world and have been presented at the Center for Interfaith Relations' 2018 Festival of Faiths, the World Lamp Prayer Gathering at Madison Square Garden, and in Bodh Gaya, India in the presence of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. In 2017, he was the recipient of American Composers Forum's final Faith Partners grant, which funded the composition of a series of sacred pieces, the gospel anthem All Are Welcome Here, and a full Lutheran liturgy service adaptable to any instrumentation. He writes and arranges a great deal of choral music for his choirs.

Gary is currently in pre-production for an experimental opera based on the lives of the Transcendentalists, an adaptation of The Odyssey featuring country songs, and a new holiday dinner theater show.

A first-generation college graduate from Kentucky, Ruschman got a start in community theater and close-harmony singing with his family, playing in rock bands, and going on to graduate with honors from the San Francisco Conservatory. He built a two decade-long career as a singer and multi-instrumentalist before transitioning to composing and music directing in 2014.

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