Biography - Jean R Perrault

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jean “Rudy” Perrault is a performer, conductor, and composer recognized internationally as an educator, clinician, and artist. He has guest-conducted All-State orchestras across the United States and regularly serves as a clinician and panelist at festivals and competitions worldwide.

Perrault’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by renowned musicians and ensembles. Recent works include Omaj a Rasin for clarinet and djembe; Fallen, a duo for cello and piano written for the Bardin-Niskala Duo; Sometimes, I Feel…, a string orchestra work commissioned by the Northwest Suburban Conference high school orchestras reflecting on the murder of George Floyd; Caged for flute and double bass, commissioned for the 2020 National Flute Conference; We Three Kings, a piano trio commissioned by the Clayton-Jackson-McGhie Memorial to mark the centennial of the 1920 Duluth lynching; Dialogues for violin and cello; Peze Kafe for cello and hand drum; and an arrangement of Ludovic Lamothe’s Danza No. 4 for violin, cello, and hand drum.

Current projects include musical settings of three poems by acclaimed author Edwidge Danticat, a large-orchestra work titled Cognitive Dissonance, and Seremoni, a ballet for cello and world percussion. For over a decade, Perrault has collected, digitized, and edited piano works by Haitian classical composers; his latest compilation, The Music of Solon Verret, will be released soon. His compositions, arrangements, and compilations are published by JW Pepper, allEMusicPress and KlasikLakay

He is a founding member and president of the Kako Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to providing music education to at-risk youth in the United States and Haiti.

Perrault is a Fulbright scholar; he makes his home in Duluth, Minnesota.