Conductor Jeffrey Renshaw is acclaimed by critics as a conductor whose performances are “both atmospheric and incisive; tender and gentle and simply beautiful; refreshes the senses,” and is respected worldwide for his dynamic interpretations and extensive command of wind ensemble and contemporary repertoire. His ability to bring out vibrant colors and textures in a wide-range of works, coupled with his expertise in 20th and 21st century music, have earned him a strong following internationally as a conductor, pedagogue, arranger and author. 

As a champion of new music, he has conducted over 60 world premieres with new music ensembles, wind ensembles and orchestras.  Compositions have been written for him by Pulitzer Prize winning composers Joseph Schwantner, John Harbison, and Morton Gould, as well as Warren Benson, Samuel Adler, Anthony Iannaccone, Daniel Kellogg, Frank Ticheli, Betsy Schramm, Thomas Duffy, Michael Torke, Karim Al-Zand, Gabriela Frank, Orriana Webb, Daniel Kellogg, Lowell Liebermann, Christopher Rousse, Stacy Garrop and Jared Spears. 

Acknowledged as one of the foremost pedagogs in conducting, he is in wide demand as a conducting clinician and is the only artist-clinician in conducting for the Yamaha Corporation of America. In 1996, at the request of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Dr. Renshaw and the University Wind Ensemble performed at Carnegie Hall to a standing room only audience of the nation’s musical elite in a Tribute to Morton Gould.  In 2012, video of this performance was featured on the Morton Gould website sponsored by the Carnegie Hall Foundation. In the spring of 2001, Dr. Renshaw was selected to work with Maestro Pierre Boulez at Carnegie Hall on the composer’s own Le Marteau sans maître. Dr. Renshaw and the University Wind Ensemble are the winners of the 2002 and 2005 Downbeat Magazine Student Music Award for the Best Classical Instrumentalists. The Wind Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra returned to Carnegie Hall in the Fall of 2005 with an evening of new works commissioned by Dr. Raymond and Beverly Sackler.

Dr. Renshaw has published over 30 articles about conducting and repertoire published in professional journals and magazines including the Journal of Band Research, the Instrumentalist Magazine and has contributed several articles to the eight volumes of Teaching Music through Band Performance. His book on the American Wind Symphony commissions is required reading in most graduate and undergraduate conducting and repertoire courses. An accomplished arranger, his music has been recorded by the Eastman Wind Ensemble on the CBS/Sony Masterworks label and is published by Ludwig Music Publishers and Counterpoint Music Publishing. Performances of his ensembles and arrangements have been broadcast throughout Europe, Australia, Japan, the Netherlands and in the United States on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today” and WGBH Boston’s “Art of the States”.

The Atlantic Brass Quintet and the University Wind Ensemble will release a Compact Disk in the Fall of 2014. The recording will feature the premiere of Kevin Walczyk's Symphony No. 3 Quintet Matinee and Earl MacDonalds It Was Whispered for chamber ensemble.

Students from his conducting studio have won conducting positions in wind bands and orchestras at colleges, universities, conservatories and professional ensembles throughout the United States and Europe. At the University of Connecticut he is Professor Emeritas of Conducting, conductor of the University Wind Ensemble, Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Composition, Chair of Conducting and Ensembles, and taught undergraduate and graduate conducting.

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