Evelyn Ruf was born in 1995 in Karlsruhe. From the age of seven, she received piano lessons at the Badisches Konservatorium music school in Karlsruhe and sang in its children’s choir from that time onward. She received further encouragement at the Helmholtz-Gymnasium high school, which shaped her musical career with its focus on music and outstanding ensembles. She won several national awards as a pianist in the “Jugend musiziert” young musicians’ competition, and when she completed her high school leaving examination (Abitur) she earned a music prize from the Sparkasse. In Karlsruhe, she studied school music and geography and in 2020 was awarded a 2nd prize in the Karlsruhe University of Music’s school music competition, which was held digitally.

Since 2018, Evelyn Ruf has conducted various choirs and furthered her musical career by taking several master classes in conducting. From April 2021 to September 2023, she consolidated her major in Conducting by completing a Master’s Degree at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK) under Prof. Florian Lohmann. She has been working as a voice coach for the Cäcilienchor choir in Frankfurt since July 2021 and has been conductor of the Frauenchor Lorsbach women’s choir since July 2023. In January 2024, Evelyn Ruf will take over from Linda Horowitz as Musical Director of the German-American Community Choir e.V.

Musical Direction from 1973 – 2023

• 1973 – 1980 Doris Cross
  Co-founder of the choir – now Artistic Director at the Yale School of Music, New Haven, CT, USA
• 1980 – 1985 Marcel Seminara
  Choir Director of the Alte Oper – today choirmaster at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Italy
• 1985 – 1989 Melvin Brown – died in 2007
• 1989 – 1993 Linda Horowitz
  First female choirmaster at the Theater Heidelberg
• 1993 – 1998 Eberhard Friedrich
  Conductor at the Wiesbadener Theater – today conductor at the Staatsoper Hamburg as well as the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth
• 1998 – 2023 Linda Horowitz

Musical accompaniment/Répétiteur:

Benedikt Fox

Pianist Benedikt Fox was born in 1988 in Bad Dürkheim in Rhineland-Palatinate. He received his first piano lesson at the age of five, and won several awards in the young musicians’ competition “Jugend musiziert” (including third prize at the national competition in 2006) before he went to university. After studying music teaching in the piano class taught by Thorsten Larbig, he began a degree course in instrument teaching majoring in piano under Prof. Axel Gremmelspacher in 2014. He completed his degree in 2016. At the university, he worked as a répétiteur in the singing department and headed tutorials on the subject of aural training. Benedikt Fox has been a regular performer at the Burgfestspiele (Castle Festival) in Bad Vilbel, and since 2014 has been a musical director of various productions, including “Blues Brothers”, “The Wizard of Oz” and “Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer”. He has gained further theatre experience at the Hessisches Staatstheater in Wiesbaden. Since October 2013, he has been sponsored by Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Frankfurt am Main e.V. together with his chanson partner Theresa Winterer, a finalist in the 2013 German song contest “Bundeswettbewerb Gesang.”

Musical accompaniment before 2016

•  1983 – 2016 Jim Schar