Cellist Clay Ruede has appeared as a soloist in North America and Europe and participates in a variety of ensembles that reflect an involvement with almost every aspect of contemporary musical life. He has performed with ensembles as diverse as the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the contemporary music ensemble Speculum Musicae, and was the cellist in the Arden Trio for 25 years. Mr. Ruede served for over a decade as principal cellist for City Center’s Encores Orchestra and the American Theater Orchestra, as well as Garrison Keilor’s “Coffee Club” orchestra for performances, broadcasts, and recordings of classic American music. A prominent member of New York City’s recording industry, Clay can be heard in film scores for Spike Lee’s and the Disney Studios’ films, and has recorded for the eminent film composers Ennio Moricone and Elmer Bernstein. Mr. Ruede has recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas, the Caprices and Etudes for solo cello of August Franchomme, piano trios of Ravel, Saint-Saens, Mendelssohn, Haydn, Arthur Foote and Evan Ziporyn, and music of the composers Milton Babbitt, Philip Glass, and Stephen Sondheim, and is currently preparing a recording of the complete sonatas of the French post-impressionist composer Joseph Guy Ropartz. He has performed as both a soloist and an ensemble player for recordings and broadcasts that feature the singers Marilyn Horne, Barbara Streissand, Thomas Hampson, Emmylou Harris, Bjork, the Back Street Boys, Jewel, and Billy Joel, jazz artists Stanley Turrentine, Chico O’Farrell, and David Liebman, and the groups Smashing Pumpkins and Blues Traveler. Mr. Ruede can be heard as the solo cellist in the late filmmaker Robert Altman’s film, “the Company.”