Musician Willie Ruff to Present Lecture-Demonstration On the "Church Bass"

Willie Ruff, professor at the Yale School of Music, will present the annual James Snead Memorial Lectureship on Sunday, Oct. 4, at 7 p.m. in Dwight Chapel. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The talk, titled “The Church Bass: A Yankee Tradition with a Southern Accent,” will explore the early New England church practice of traveling clergy, who played the bass fiddle as part of their ministry. In some communities, music was forbidden except when the clergyman sang and accompanied himself on the string bass. Ruff will perform spirituals based on the Hebrew Bible, as part of the presentation.

With pianist Dwike Mitchell, Ruff performs string bass and French horn as the Mitchell-Ruff Duo. The two have toured extensively in the United States, Asia, Africa and Europe and made several recordings.

Ruff received his B.M. and M.M. degrees at Yale and has been a member of the Yale faculty since 1971. He has taught interdisciplinary seminars on rhythm, instrumental arranging, and other courses at the Yale School of Music, as well as courses in ethnomusicology and folklore at Yale College. He is the founding director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship program.