Rudolph "Rudy" Vrbsky

Rudolph Vrbsky (born March 7, 1952) passed away on Thursday, December 12th, 2024 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Rudy was the former principal oboist of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C. for over 25 years, appointed by Mstislav Rostropovich in 1981. He was also a fixture at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, performing there in the summer for well over half his life, having first attended as a student in 1971. He can be heard on countless recordings with the NSO and was especially proud of his work in the orchestra’s Shostakovich symphony cycle and the music of Prokofiev (Deutsche Grammophon). He is also featured on many of the historic Marlboro Recording Society releases, including the Beethoven Quintet for Piano and Winds with Rudolph Serkin, Mozart Gran Partita with Marcel Moyse conducting, and the Schoenberg Chamber Symphony (Sony Classical).

Rudy grew up in Chicago, and started playing the piano and drums in elementary school and the oboe in middle school. He joined the Chicago Civic Symphony in high school and then attended Northwestern University, where he studied with Ray Still, the former principal oboist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He attended the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where he was in residence with the Aulos Winds quintet, winners of the 1978 Naumburg Award in chamber music. The Aulos Winds commissioned and premiered John Harbison’s Quintet for Winds, one of the seminal works for woodwind quintet. Prior to his appointment to the NSO, he held teaching positions at Western Illinois University and Dartmouth College. While living in D.C., he taught at the University of Maryland, American University, and the Peabody Institute. Through his long association with the Marlboro Festival and School, he influenced multiple generations of wind players who now occupy many of the top orchestra and teaching positions in the United States.

Rudy loved spending time with his family and visiting friends and loved ones, usually on long circuitous road trips in cars that should not have been driven on long circuitous road trips. He was a voracious eater, reader, baker, and gourmet cook. Rudy was a dinner party’s classic middle: he could hold court at the Watergate bar with the same natural comfort and charm he would use to befriend a stranger on the street or chat up a famous conductor at work. His reverence for music never left him, even after he became physically unable to perform, often going down rabbit holes online looking for musical moments in scores and listening to pieces he had studied since he was a kid. He traded in his reed-making tools for a wrench upon retirement, and derived great pleasure from repairing and driving classic cars.

He died peacefully at home in the care of his devoted son Lucas and friend Karriem Muhammad. Donations in his memory to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago are welcome at this time. https://bgcc.org/donate/