Meet a Roadrunner: World-renowned violinist Stan Renard plants roots at UTSA

By Mark Langford
Associate Director of University Communications

(Sept. 30, 2015) — Meet Stan Renard. The UTSA music marketing coordinator and professor is a violin virtuoso.

Renard began playing the violin as a child in Grenoble, France. Early on, he trained under renowned violinist Veda Reynolds, one of the world’s first female concertmaster and the first woman to play in the Philadelphia Orchestra. That training set the stage for a performance and conducting career that took Renard around Europe and America.

Renard moved to the United States in 2002. He attended the Pierre Monteux Conducting School in Hancock, Maine, established the chamber orchestra Opus 1 at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and formed the Connecticut-based contemporary music group NOVA Musica. He also conducted the Colby Symphony Orchestra while serving as the violin/viola applied music associate at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

In Rhode Island, Renard formed the Bohemian Quarter, a touring band known for its East Central European style of Roma, or Gypsy, music.

“No one else in the U.S. does that. It’s kind of unique,” he said.

This fall, Renard joined UTSA as part of the university’s Goldstar Initiative, which supports its recruitment and retention of world-class faculty members. Through his vast experience and his education in music and international business, UTSA students will have a unique opportunity to explore music through a new lens.

Renard aims to demystify music’s business side by teaching music marketing. In his classes, students will learn how to manage a band or an orchestra, protect copyrights, collect royalties, work with booking agents and market their own music and the creative works of others.

“I’ll be teaching people how to make money in music,” said Renard. “I will also teach a course in music entrepreneurship this coming spring. Students will learn how to be innovative self-starters. Some will work for nonprofits while some will run their own companies.”

Renard’s new duties in the classroom won’t take him off the stage though. He plans to return to Rhode Island from time to time to perform with the Bohemian Quartet.

“We still have a lot of play dates, 12 to 20 performances a year,” he said. “That’s a lot of plane rides, but I’m not giving anything up.”

And by next year, Renard hopes to be playing gigs in San Antonio as well.

“It’s definitely going to happen,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

-----------------------------

Connect online with UTSA on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.