Ralph Farris
Multi-instrumentalist composer, conductor, producer and educator Ralph Farris, is Director of Chamber Music and Viola Faculty at Longy School of Music of Bard College. He is a founding member and Co-Artistic Director of the genre-bending string quartet ETHEL (GRAMMY® Award with Kurt Elling; Resident Ensemble at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balcony Bar; TED Presenter and EG Presenter; Ensemble-in-Residence at Denison University; 2018-19 Quartet-in-Residence at Kaufman Music Center’s Face the Music; and 2019 Levi Family Distinguished Visiting Artist at The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University).
Ralph has spent the last three decades on contemporary music’s front lines, collaborating with a wide range of luminaries, from Ron Carter, Leonard Bernstein, Ensemble Modern and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, to Raven Chacon, Gorillaz, Kaki King, Robert Mirabal, Merce Cunningham and DMC. He has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Juilliard Orchestra, the Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra, Tasmanian Youth Orchestra and Red (an orchestra). The onetime Music Director and Solo Fiddle of the Roger Daltrey Band, Ralph was an original Broadway company member of Disney’s “The Lion King.” An award-winning graduate of The Juilliard School (BM/MM), award-winning three-time Tanglewood Fellow, Hermitage Artist, and YoungArts Interdisciplinary Master Teacher and National Reviewer, Ralph holds an honorary degree from Denison University. He has given classes at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Kinhaven Music School, Next Festival of Emerging Artists, Nevada School of the Arts, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Interlochen Arts Academy, Eastman School of Music, and The Juilliard School.
Ralph has produced recordings for and with ETHEL; for artists such as A Moving Sound, Hevreh and Stanley Grill; for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Balcony Bar from Home” series; and for the Broadway and 9/11 communities. He provided string arrangements for the GRAMMY®-nominated Five For Fighting hit, “Superman (It’s Not Easy);” and he worked as music supervisor / coordinator / conducting coach on Martin Scorsese’s “The Key to Reserva.” Guest Curator of Randy Cohen’s “Person Place Thing,” Ralph has served as Host of Carnegie Hall Family Concerts, and in partnership with Rogers Art Loft (NV), as Curator & Host of “Co-Lab: The Art of Collaboration.” Ralph was lead coordinator of the volunteer corps of musicians at St. Paul’s Chapel and St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, supervising 500+ performances offered in support of the 9/11 Rescue and Recovery Effort.
Featured Composer of New England Conservatory Preparatory School’s Contemporary Music Festival (2018), Ralph has received commissions from Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Ringling Museum, dance evangelists Monkeyhouse, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Las Vegas darlings Jarrett & Raja, the Jerome Foundation, and the NEA. His scoring credits include Jehane Noujaim’s “Pangea Day” industrial, Tracy MacDonald and Matt Zodrow’s “RIGGED,” the Aquila Theatre’s productions of “A Female Philoctetes” and “The Tempest,” and ETHEL’s “Documerica,” “The River,” and “Circus: Wandering City.” Ralph endorses the AVID family of software solutions and he plays instruments by Douglas Cox.
@theralphfarris
@ethelcentral
