Paul Dulude, Music Director & Conductor

Paul Dulude, Music Director and Conductor of the Boston Virtuosi began his musical studies at the age of nine. He was a pupil in the Attleboro public schools and was initially a violin student, and then a viola student, of the late Louis Ruggeri. He enrolled in the Music Performance program as a student of Joseph Pietropaolo at the University of Lowell. He graduated with his B.M. in 1981. Paul entered the Graduate program at Lowell with a position as Teaching Assistant and was a student of George Neikrug.

Paul went on to accept a position as violist with the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra (Orquesta Filarmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico) in 1984, where he was much in demand. There he played with two additional orchestras, working as substitute principal viola for the State of Mexico Symphony, and as principal and solo violist for a professional chamber orchestra sponsored by the University of Mexico. Paul returned to the Boston area in 1988 and completed his M.M. in Viola Performance at the University of Lowell. As a freelance violist he has played in many local orchestras such as the Boston Philharmonic, and far ranging Symphony Orchestras including Bangor, ME, Waterbury, CT., Valdosta, GA., Springfield, IL, Greenville, S.C., and the Palm Beach [FL.] Opera. He has also played for such diverse artists as Johnny Mathis, Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick and Marvin Hamlish.

Paul is a great enthusiast of chamber music and has been a founding member of two small chamber ensembles. A passionate and dedicated teacher, Paul has accepted many students over the years but due to other commitments, currently restricts his teaching to a small coterie of promising students. Paul’s academic background, and career-driven interest in the technical aspects of string playing, has led to a concomitant interest in instrument making. He is frequently consulted by musicians all over the United States searching for an instrument. In June of 1995 he was a Lecturer at the European Congress on Performing Arts Medicine (Frankfurt, Germany), addressing those in the medical field who treat musicians with injuries from playing, regarding some of the ways that instrument ergonomics and playing technique affect string playing, causing injuries. He has been on the faculty of the acclaimed North Bennett Street School of Violin Making, as the instructor of violin playing. All of Paul’s abilities and passions were brought to a focus several years ago when his Dover String Quartet was engaged by the Hartt School of Music to be the Quartet in Residence at the prestigious and intensive summer Conductor’s Institute.

Paul was subsequently invited to be the Institute’s principal and core violist, which he continued for eight years. In this period, the Institute’s director, Harold Faberman, observed Paul’s insight for conducting and encouraged Paul to become a student at the Institute as a Conducting Colleague, in which capacity he attended for two years. When scheduling permits, Paul continues to study the art of conducting with Kenneth Kiesler, and has recently returned from his second summer of studies at Keisler’s renowned Conductor’s Retreat in Medomak, ME.

Paul Dulude is a native of the Bay State and currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His outside interests include photography, bicycling and cooking.