VENUS & ADONIS
2024 · Signum Classics
BEHOLD THE STARS
2021 · Signum Classics
AN EVERLASTING DAWN 2017 · Perseus Records
Mexican composer Rodrigo Ruiz writes “unabashedly tonal” music (BBC Music Magazine) increasingly sought after by leading artists and ensembles worldwide. His “impeccably crafted” (Apple Music), award-winning works are published by Universal Edition, released on Signum Classics, and regularly performed across Europe and the Americas.
Recent commissions include projects for Tenebrae, the Sacconi Quartet, tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz, sopranos Mané Galoyan and Grace Davidson, violist Ismel Campos, violinist Kerenza Peacock, cellist Giacomo Menna, Mexico’s National System of Musical Endowment (SNFM), and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Falcón in Venezuela.
Other notable interpreters of his work include Laura van der Heijden (BBC Young Musician 2012), Huw Watkins mbe, Christopher Glynn (GRAMMY® Award Winner), Francesca Chiejina, and Jocelyn Freeman. His orchestral works have been premiered by the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México (OSEM) under José Miguel Rodilla and Iván del Prado in back-to-back seasons, the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil de Zapopan, and the Orquesta Escuela Carlos Chávez.
During the 2025/26 season, Ruiz will expand his catalogue with a new work, rooted in pre-Columbian Mexico, written for the countertenor and conductor Iván López Reynoso. Season highlights include premieres in the United States with the Longmont Symphony Orchestra under their music director Elliot Moore, as well as with the Armenian soprano Mané Galoyan in Wisconsin; and in Mexico, two premieres: one with the pianist Ángel Gabriel López, and another with the soprano Tania Solís and the pianist Andrés Sarre.
In the 2024/25 season, Ruiz was awarded the Prix spécial du Festival de Caylus for his Cello Suite (2020). His album Venus & Adonis (Signum, 2024) won the Melómano de Oro, was featured as an idagio Editor’s Pick, selected as an Apple Music Hidden Gem, and reached №2 on the iTunes Classical charts in both the US and UK.
Ruiz’s first album Behold the Stars (Signum, 2021) debuted on the Billboard Classical Charts, reached №2 and №3 on the bestseller lists of iTunes UK and iTunes US respectively, was selected by Apple Music as one of the Top 10 Classical Albums of the Month, and received a four-star review from bbc Music Magazine.
Alongside his work as a composer, Ruiz has an active career as a conductor, having served as assistant conductor on Milhaud: L’Orestie d’Eschyle (Naxos, 2014), nominated for the 2015 GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording. He was music director of the University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society and assistant conductor of the Community Youth Orchestra of Southern California (CYOSC). He has collaborated with soloists including Thomas Cilluffo, Ian Green, Antonina Chekhovskaya, Alexander Vivero, Andrea Fortier, and Katie Rosen.
Ruiz graduated cum laude from Lawrence University; as a scholarship holder, he pursued a Master’s degree in orchestral conducting at the University of Michigan under Kenneth Kiesler; and studied composition with Francesco Telli of the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He later undertook postgraduate studies in mythology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, supported by the Joseph Campbell Scholarship.