Dr. Ronald Crutcher
Ronald Crutcher was born in Cincinnati and began studying the cello at the age of 15 with Professor Elizabeth Potteiger, a faculty member at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. At the age of 17 he won the Cincinnati Symphony Young Artist Competition. As a Woodrow Wilson and Ford Foundation Fellow, he studied at Yale University with the renowned cellist Aldo Parisot and became the first cellist to receive the doctor of musical arts degree from Yale. The recipient of a coveted Fulbright Fellowship, Crutcher continued his studies in Germany with Siegfried Palm and Gerhard Mantel. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in March 1985.
Dr. Crutcher has performed numerous recitals in the United States, Europe, and South America and has recorded for Austrian and German radio. For almost forty years, he performed in the USA and Europe as a member of the Klemperer Trio with Erika Klemperer violin, and Gordon Back, piano.
Ronald Crutcher has written several articles on music for professional journals and reference books and has served internationally as a consultant for numerous music and fine arts programs. He has served on the boards of the Austin, Boston, Cleveland, and Richmond symphony orchestras. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors for the Sphinx Organization, and he has twice served as a member of the jury for the Sphinx Competition. Dr. Crutcher is a past president of Chamber Music America. His thematic memoir, I Had No Idea You Were Black: Navigating Race on the Road to Leadership, was published in February 2021.
Dr. Crutcher is President Emeritus and University Professor at the University of Richmond, where he served as the tenth president from 2016-2021. He is also President Emeritus of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. Dr. Crutcher formerly served in senior leadership positions at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin; and he was provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Miami University of Ohio and Professor of Music. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of the American Council on Education and is a Senior Fellow of the Aspen Institute.