Ralph Farris
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Ralph Farris (born Ralph Howard Farris Jr.) is an American violist, violinist, composer, arranger, and conductor. He specializes in new music and is a founding member of the string quartet ETHEL.
Farris was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1970, the son of musicians, Nancy DuCette Farris and Ralph Howard Farris. He began studying music at the age of 3, beginning with recorder and piano, moving on to violin at age six. As a boy soprano, he was featured as a soloist in several of his parents' Ralph Farris Chorale productions, including Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, "Pie Jesu" from Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, and in the title role of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors.
From 1976 to 1982 Farris attended the Longy School of Music and was a member of the New England Conservatory of Music's Youth Philharmonic Orchestra under Benjamin Zander from 1982 to 1989. In 1983 Farris entered Walnut Hill School of the Arts, where he graduated in 1989. Between 1989 and 1991 Farris was a 3-year recipient of a Tanglewood Fellowship and participated in the Spoleto Festival USA/Festival dei Due Mondi in 1992. In 1995 he attended Dartington International Summer School, in the conducting program under the tutalage of Maestro Diego Masson. Farris holds B.M. and M.M. degrees (accelerated program) from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Samuel Rhodes, graduating in 1994. He was awarded the school's William Schuman Prize in 1994.
He was a member of the original orchestra (playing violin and viola, and serving as assistant conductor) for the Broadway production of The Lion King, and is also a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Le Quatuor DuCette.
He has recorded with and/or arranged for a wide variety of popular, jazz, and classical musicians, including Natalie Merchant, Dishwalla, Fountains of Wayne, Danny Aiello, Clay Aiken, Jim Snidero, Regina Carter, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Chantal Kreviazuk, Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Julia Wolfe, They Might Be Giants, Joe Jackson, Les Négresses Vertes, and the Mediæval Bæbes.
Farris was the lead coordinator of the volunteer musicians who performed daily at New York City's St. Paul's Chapel ("The Miracle Church") during the 9/11 Relief Effort.[1] [2] In December of 2001, he conducted a group of Broadway actors and singers in a radio simulcast of holiday songs at Ground Zero and Times Square. His string quartet arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner" was performed at the World Trade Center site on the 1-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks by the St. Paul's Chapel String Quartet and was internationally televised.
He lives in New York City.
