Poul Ruders

Poul Ruders (born 27 March 1949) is a Danish composer. Life Born in Ringsted, Ruders trained as an organist, and studied orchestration with Karl Aage Rasmussen. Ruders’s first compositions date from the mid-1960s. Ruders regards his own compositional development as a gradual one, with his true voice emerging with the chamber concerto, Four Compositions, of 1980. His notable students include Marc Mellits. Minor planet 5888 Ruders discovered by Eleanor Helin and Schelte J. Bus is named after him. Music Ruders has created a large body of music ranging from opera and orchestral works through chamber, vocal and solo music in a variety of styles, from the Vivaldi pastiche of his first violin concerto (1981) to the explosive modernism of Manhattan Abstraction (1982). Other works include the operas Tycho (1986), The Handmaid’s Tale (1998, with libretto by Paul Bentley), Proces Kafka / Kafka’s Trial (2005, again with libretto by Bentley), Selma Ježková (2007, after Trier’s Dancer in the Dark ), and the fairytale opera The Thirteenth Child (2016), five symphonies, four string quartets, Violin Concerto No. 1 (1981), Etude and Ricercare (1994) for guitar, for David Starobin, The Bells (songs)