Composers

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, performer, conductor and composer, Jean (Rudy) Perrault is a sought-after educator/clinician, composer, performer, and conductor, nationally and internationally. His compositions have been commissioned for, and performed by, world famous musicians and ensembles. His latest commissions are a piece for clarinet and djembe entitled “Omaj a Rasin” and a Ballet (Seremoni) for cello and world percussion. Other recent compositions include: “Fallen”, a Duo for Cello and Piano for the Bardin-Niskala-Duo, a work for string orchestra “Sometimes, I Feel…” commissioned by the Northwest Suburban Conference high school orchestra programs (depicting the events surrounding the George Floyd murder), a duo for flute and double bass entitled “Caged” (commissioned for the 2020 National Flute Conference), a piano trio, "We Three Kings", commissioned by the Clayton-Jackson-McGhie Memorial organization (marking the 100th anniversary of the 1920 Duluth lynching), a duo for violin and cello (Dialogues for violin and cello), a duo for cello and hand drum (Peze Kafe), and an arrangement of Ludovic Lamothe’s Danza #4 for violin, cello and hand drum. 

Future projects include setting to music three poems of world-renown author Edwidge Danticat, and a composition for large orchestra entitled "Cognitive Dissonance". For more than a decade, Rudy has been collecting, digitizing, and editing the piano works of Haitian classical composers. His latest compilation: The music of Solon Verret, will soon become available. Rudy’s compositions, compilations and arrangements are distributed through JW Pepper.

He is Professor of Music, and Director of Orchestras, at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He is a frequent judge/panelist at festivals and competitions in all corners of the world. Rudy is a founding member of the Kako Foundation (kakofoundation.com), a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing music to at-risk youth in the US and Haiti. He is a Fulbright Scholar, and the recipient of the 2022 UMD College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity award.