Valerian Ruminski

Valerian Ruminski (born 1967, Buffalo, New York) is an American bass singer.

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He attended SUNY Buffalo and the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He apprenticed with the Santa Fe and Chautauqua Operas and has performed with the NYC Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Kansas City Lyric Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera de Montreal, New Israeli Opera (Tel Aviv), Opera Pacific, Michigan Opera Theatre, Atlanta Opera, Syracuse Opera, Opera de Monte Carlo, Festival Lyrique de Belle Ile en Mer and the El Paso Opera. His roles have included Ferrando/Il Trovatore, Sparafucile/Rigoletto, Sarastro/The Magic Flute, Betto/Gianni Schicchi, Inspector Budd/Albert Herring, Lt. Ratcliffe/Billy Budd, Figaro/Le nozze di Figaro, Fenicio/Ermione and Frank/Die Fledermaus

Mr. Ruminski is a recipient of a Richard Tucker Career Grant, a Lincoln Center Martin Segal Award, a William Mattheus Sullivan Foundation Grant, a 2004 Gerda Lissner Foundation Grant, a Liederkranz Prize, 1st Prize in the MacAllister Singing Competition, 1st Prize in the NJ Verismo Competition, 1st Prize in the Marcella Sembrich Competition in NYC, 1st Prize in the DiPanni Bel Canto Comoetition in Rhode Island, 1st Prize in the New York Singing Teachers Association (NYSTA) Coloratura Competition in NYC, 2nd Prize in the Altamura/Caruso Competition in Imola, Italy and 2nd Prize in the Loren Zachary Competition in LA. He has also been recognized as the Outstanding Polish Citizen of Music by the Am-Pol Eagle newspaper in Buffalo, New York.

Among his concert appearances include a Messiah with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, a Verdi Requiem for the Verdi Festival in Forli Italy, Song of the Forest for the Bard School Festival of Shostakovich, Carmen in concert with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Haydn's Creation at St. Joseph University in Philadelphia and the Richard Tucker Gala on PBS in 1999 and 2000.

Mr. Ruminski resides in New York City. He can be heard on the Naxos Records release of A Night at the Opera with other young singers who have debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as well as the Deutsche Grammophon release of I Puritani with Anna Netrebko and John Relyea.

In August 2014, Mr. Ruminski was fired by a Canadian opera company in Ottawa from a production of Tosca by G. Puccini. The company posted a statement on their Facebook page which read: " Mr. Valerian Ruminski has recently expressed some personal views on Facebook. These became a public issue as soon as he chose to post them. His follow-up comments are also on the public record. Opera Lyra dissociates itself entirely from Mr. Ruminski’s publicly stated views. We are relieving him of his duties." The comments were allegedly homophobic in nature. A text of the comments are as follows: “ Look at the stupid nails this moron had on while taking a bus in Ottawa. I guess he needed the diamond studded nails to make up for his face.He is ASKING for criticism by parading his choices in front of everyone. Like the black males who wear their pants down off their asses. They WANT you to notice it and get angered by it. That’s part of the strategy. He has an agenda by gluing diamonds onto his nails…and so do I by commenting on how stupid it is!Clearly people have deficiencies and deficits and needs in this world and this is how we get to see them. People with issues do things to get noticed. Frankly, I don’t want to notice them. I don’t want to be an unwilling participant in their ego issues and I don’t want to have to be forced to think anything about them as people because I happen to glance over and see some absurd monstrosity like 10 diamonds nailed onto his fingertips. They FORCE you to think something about them. They FORCE you to pass some kind of judgement. Turning the other way and not thinking about WHY would be the easy way, I guess. NOT having an opinion is exactly what they DON’T want. They are dying, salivating for the people around them to have some opinion about what they are seeing….otherwise WHY do it? “

In the aftermath Mr. Ruminski posted a testimonial rebutting the worst of the accusations and has since issued a public apology to the individual the post was directed at.

In September 2014 Mr. Ruminski was hired to direct the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra production of Bartok's 'Bluebeards Castle' featuring the famous glass sculptures of Dale Chihuly.

List of roles sung by Valerian Ruminski: