Rudolf Haken

Guest Instructor, Electric Strings

​Rudolf Haken is a viola professor and director of the new Electric Strings program at the University of Illinois. Haken is also a composer internationally renowned for his creative melding of disparate musical styles and genres and is particularly known for his work with extended-range violas, appearing in concert on four continents with his Rivinus five-string viola and Wood Viper six-string electric viola. At the University of Illinois he directs the Electric Strings Ensemble and the Hip Hop Collective. He has performed his own viola concertos with numerous orchestras in Asia, Europe, North America and South America. In September 2012, violinist Rachel Barton Pine commissioned and premiered a solo violin work of his at Chicago’s Beethoven Festival. Haken has also been a featured performer of contemporary music at conventions of the Shakujii International Orchestra of Tokyo, Japan; HEIMES of Sapporo, Japan; Society of Composers, Inc., Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and American Composer’s Alliance in New York City.