RUSKIN COOPER is a native of Savannah, Georgia. His teachers include James Ambrose, Lydia Frumkin, Jacques Abram, Leonard Hokanson, Hartmut Höll and John Salmon. He received a Fulbright Grant for study in Germany, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the piano music of young Robert Schumann's closest friend, Ludwig Schuncke. Ruskin's study received the Outstanding Dissertation Award at UNCG, and is cited in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. It was published in an English-German version in 1997.

Ruskin is active as a recitalist, chamber musician, teacher, clinician, and adjudicator. He has given solo recitals throughout the Southeast, as well as in Germany, Italy, Poland, and Mexico. He has been a frequent guest with chamber groups in North Carolina, including Chamber Music at St. Peter's in Charlotte and the Carolina Chamber Symphony in Winston-Salem. In 2006, he played to large, enthusiastic audiences in Italy, prompting the Corriere Adriatico to write that he "literally drove the audience wild" with a program of American piano music. He recently participated in the world premiere of a trio by North Carolina composer Mary Armistead Jones.

Since 1997, he has taught at Davidson College, having also taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts and at Salem College. He is Past President of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the College Music Society, and has served on the board of the North Carolina Music Teachers Association. He has presented papers on the music of Schuncke and Schumann at regional meetings of the College Music Society and the American Musicological Society, and has conducted clinics and judged competitions for the North Carolina Music Teachers Association and many other piano teachers' organizations.

His performances have been broadcast via the internet on Radio Vaticana. Ruskin has recorded for Centaur Records, South German Radio, WFDD-FM and WDAV-FM. A CD featuring American piano music is available on Centaur Records, and has been broadcast on many radio stations throughout the NPR network. Ruskin recently performed Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Elon University Orchestra, the Northern Neck Orchestra, and the Davidson College Symphony Orchestra.

In his spare time, Ruskin can be found cycling and fundraising for the National MS Society's Tour to Tanglewood or driving and tinkering with antique cars. He uses the long commutes to and from Davidson to brush up on his foreign languages, several of which he speaks with varying degrees of fluency.

Back to Artists Roster