Avant-garde classical composer and painter whose work was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and the San Francisco Symphony. He was known for his skillful use of dissonant counterpoint, a term that Charles Seeger invented as a way of describing the Ruggles oeuvre. He was appointed the director of the YMCA orchestra in 1892. He published his first compositions--"How Can I Be Blythe and Glad," "At Sea," and "Maiden with Thy Mouth of Roses"--in 1899.
