Ariel Rudiakov

Violist and conductor Ariel Rudiakov is co-founder and Artistic Director of Taconic Music. He currently serves on the faculty of Bennington College and enjoys a busy and diverse musical life. As violist, he has performed to critical acclaim throughout much of the U.S. and abroad.

In recent years Ariel has performed at the Kawai a Ledro Festival in Italy, Pikes Falls Chamber Music Festival in Vermont, and as guest violist of the Hyperion String Quartet, among others. He is a former member of the New York Piano Quartet and Equinox String Quartet, and a founding member and past president of SONYC (String Orchestra of New York City). Ariel was Artistic Director of the Manchester Music Festival from 2000 to 2016. Among his recordings are the complete string quartets by Camille Saint-Saëns and the piano quintet by Vittorio Giannini (MSR Classics), which Fanfare magazine described as “utterly superb.”  Composers Richard Lane, Philip Lasser and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson have dedicated solo and string orchestra works to him.

At the podium, Ari is Music Director and conductor of the Danbury Symphony Orchestra and Yonkers Philharmonic, and is Assistant conductor of the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra, with whom he guest conducted this year.

Past resident and guest conducting positions have included the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, Metropolitan Symphony, Bergen, and Yonkers Philharmonics, Antara Ensemble, Manchester Chamber Orchestra, Harlem Chamber Players, Sage City Symphony, and recording sessions with Dance Theater of Harlem.

Ariel attended pre-college at the Manhattan School of Music and went on to receive Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at SUNY Purchase and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was a scholarship student at Yale University’s master’s program, where he studied viola with Jesse Levine and chamber music with members of the Tokyo String Quartet. Ari plays a viola made in 2000 by Geoffrey Ovington.