gary ruschman | onstage
Concert
Equally at home with orchestras, chamber ensembles, jazz combos, and rock bands, Gary has appeared on NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts, A Prairie Home Companion, and other national broadcasts, and performed with the Boston Pops, Kennedy Center, Minnesota Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Prague Choral Festival. He was a member of the international-circuit Cantus vocal ensemble from 2004-14.A regular performer with historically-informed Baroque ensembles, he has been a soloist on early music repertoire with the Festival Musique en l'Île de Paris, Festival di Urbino Musica Antica, Lyra Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Glorious Revolution, West Edge Opera, Flying Forms, and Consortium Carissimi (also leading their Reformation 500 Years celebration concerts from the podium).
The tenor also regularly presents new and contemporary scores, singing performances of Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light, and world premieres of works by Nico Muhly, Edie Hill, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Guillermo Galindo, Jocelyn Hagen, Byron Adams, Mohammed Fairouz, Mary Ellen Childs, Carla Lucero, Scott Glasgow, Lee Hoiby, Jeremy Walker, and Linda Tutas Haugen--along with hundreds of new choral pieces as a member of Cantus and First Readings Project in the Twin Cities and years on the San Francisco new music scene.
Opera/Theatre
After completing musical studies with honors at Northern Kentucky University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Gary apprenticed at Portland Opera and has sung to critical acclaim across the United States in forty roles, ranging from ancient masterworks to world premieres.He has performed as principal tenor in Minnesota Dance Theatre's adventurous production of Carmina Burana, the title role in Acis & Galatea for Twin Cities Early Music Festival, appeared as both Jove and Pisandro in West Edge Opera's Return of Ulisses, and in a recent upper-Midwest tour of Hagen and Freeh's Test Pilot. As the nursemaid Lisa la Vecchia in the first performances of Pasquini's Il Tirinto outside of Italy in the 1670s, Ruschman provided "a little masterpiece of comic vocalism and neat timing, expertly debunking the puffed-up posturing around him without ever going hammy." (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
Pop/Jazz
Gary’s pop and jazz appearances include shows with legends Doc Severinsen and Bobby McFerrin, and performances at New York City’s Birdland, Cincinnati's Blue Wisp, The Beach Chalet, Plush Room, and Paradise Lounge in San Francisco, and Minnesota's Dakota jazz club. He has shared the stage with members of OK Go and Wailin' Jennys, sung back-up vocals with Pray for Rain, ZikZak, Andy Williams and Marcel Khalife, and worked on dozens of studio projects.He was a founding member of Northern Kentucky University's Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and created Cantus' critically-acclaimed annual sell-out Covers concerts. He played in the St. Paul band Four Hour Parking and has released three solo albums: Biggest Sky (2019), Not Alone (2020), and LynLake (2022).
