C o n d u c t i n g

Dr. von Rueden is the Director of Choral Program and Associate Professor of Fine Arts at Hampden-Sydney College and the Founder/Director of The Piedmont Singers of Central VA.  She began her tenure at HSC in the Fall of 2014, conducting the HSC Chorus and teaching undergraduate music classes.  Recent projects for the Chorus have included tours to New Orleans, New York, and Puerto Rico, a collaboration with the Richmond Symphony in the 2015 Voices of Survival concert, and a 2018 performance of Dan Forrest's Requiem for the Living with Longwood University's choruses and orchestral ensemble.

 

Dr. von Rueden has worked with Capitol Opera Richmond, preparing the chorus for Aaron Copland's The Tender Land. In 2014, she participated in Chorus America's Choral-Orchestral Masterclass at Mannes College's New School for Music, studying under coaches David Hayes and Jorge Mester. 

 

At the University of California, Santa Barbara, Dr. von Rueden studied under Professor Michel Marc Gervais, and received a Doctor of Musical Arts in choral conducting in 2013. She was awarded a 2012 Central Fellowship for her Dissertation work on the the use of figurative language to influence musical expressivity, vocal technique, and group collaboration.  She conducted the UCSB Women’s Chorus, an undergraduate ensemble of non-voice and voice majors, for four years.  She is a past conductor the UCSB Men’s Chorus and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum Chamber Singers in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

 

Before moving to Virginia, Dr. von Rueden was Music Director at First Congregational Church in Santa Barbara, where she conducted the Chancel Choir and Welcome Singers in weekly rehearsals and services. 

 

Previous training included an Apprenticeship at Berkshire Choral Festival with Grant Gershon, Anton Armstrong, Vance George, and Heinz Ferlesch, and a Fellowship to conduct at the Norfolk Music Festival’s Choral Conducting Workshop with Simon Carrington.  As an undergraduate at Harvard University, Dr. von Rueden studied choral conducting with Jameson Marvin and Kevin Leong.