Press Click here to see what people have to say about Robert's music.
Click here to download press materials for Robert.
|
Double Bass Quartet – 8 minutes
There has been so much talk about the internet and social media being both the great connector and the great divider of people. The feeling is that these conduits of information and connectors of people bring with them a kind of odd alienation and disconnect, that we are simultaneous with people and without people. I had been thinking about these things and the image that stuck with me was the physical reality of how we spend so much of our internet time: alone, by ourselves, tucked away in our apartments and homes. My music comes from that place, the quiet times when we commune with our screens and our networks.
Full disclosure, the title Alone Together admittedly takes its cue from the Sherry Turkle book of the same name and not the legendary Arthur Schwarz and Howard Dietz song.
Alone Together was commissioned by the Heavy Hands Bass Quartet.
This recording was made by Lisa Dowling. All tracks and vocals recorded by Lisa.
Alone Together
To purchase a score and part set please click here
premiered 5.10.12 at the Gershwin Hotel by the Heavy Hands Bass Quartet
Orchestra (2222.2210.timp.strings) – 20 minutes
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been set to music many times. Composers, including Purcell, Mendelssohn and Britten, have thoroughly explored the rich dramatic and symbolic world of Shakespeare’s play. My interludes make no attempt at retelling the play’s action but instead comment on background elements: thematic ideas that lurk beneath the surface but are not themselves characters in the conventional sense.
My choosen subjects – the forest, the night, the moon, and the magic flower – play a silent but crucial role throughout the play: the night and forest providing a time and place for the main action, the moon silently watching over, and the flower acting as the primary agent of change, mischief and transformation.
The interludes are specifically meant to accompany Mendelssohn’s incidental music. Inserted into the Mendelssohn, the interludes comment on both Shakespeare’s world and Mendelssohn’s music. Drawing from a broad palette of extended techniques and conventional orchestral writing, my interludes mingle original material with transformed fragments from the Mendelssohn, injecting these disparate shards into evocative textures of unusual sounds and noises.
The work has yet to be recorded, but you can listen to demos of each movement.
For the first movement, The Forest, I borrowed a small fragment of accompanimental figuration from the Overture. The figure appears throughout The Forest as a kind of distorted echo of the original.
Four Midwinter Interludes - The Forest
For the second movement, The Moon, I time stretched the first 12 bars of the Scherzo. The sound file is played back on a portable mp3 player (iphone or ipod, for example) by every member of the orchestra. The effect is a massive surround sound haze of slowly changing harmony, the original scherzo barely recognizable.
Four Midwinter Interludes - The Moon
As the demo suggests, The Flower, jump cuts between various movements of the Mendelssohn. I recreated the effect for this demo by using an actual recording of the work.
Four Midwinter Interludes - The Flower
The Night borrows a melancholy flute tune found in one of Mendelssohn’s melodramas, the music that accompanies stage action, and takes it in a different direction.
Four Midwinter Interludes - The Night
Premiered 2.10.13 at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
Percussion Trio – Full instrument list below – 25 minutes
An Index of Possibility is about the secret worlds of sound present, but often unheard, in everyday objects. Commissioned by Tigue, Smoke and Mirrors, and Sonore Percussion the work uses simple, easy to acquire instruments. With the exception of a Kick Drum, Toms, Small Gong, Bongos and Log Drum, all instruments are either found objects, homemade constructions, or inexpensive toys. The work is about 25 minutes long in six continuous movements.
A complete instrument list includes -
Kick Drum, 3 Toms, Bongo, 4 jam blocks, 3 metals, 3 glasses, 3 ceramics, 2 Flower Pots, 2 metal mixing bowls, 2 small bells, Caxixi, Log Drum, a chromatic set of Desk Bells, 3 steel pipes (tuned), 9 copper pipes (tuned), 4 wood planks (tuned), 1 shot glass, and one serving platter attached to a foot pedal.
The work has yet to be recorded. You can listen to demos of all six movements at my soundcloud page, here.
To purchase a score and part set please click here
Premiered 1.17.13 by TIGUE, Gershwin Hotel, New York, NY
Piano 4-Hands, String Quartet, Double Bass – 6 minutes
I wrote Beginnings for the final concert of Ensemble ACJW’s 2011-12 season. Endings are often beginnings and this thought immediately made me think of beginnings in my own life. With that in mind I dedicated this piece to my then fiance and now wife, Laura.
Beginnings was commissioned by The Academy—a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education.
The recording is from a studio session featuring Timo Andres and David Kaplan on Piano, Rachel Lee and Tema Watstein on Violin, Edwin Kaplan, Viola, Yves Dharamraj, Cello, and Brian Ellingsen on Bass.
Beginnings
To purchase a score and part set please click here
premiered 6.10.12 at Le Poisson Rouge by Ensemble ACJW.
I’m excited to announce a new commission from the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra. I’ll be writing a set of orchestral pieces to go along with Mendelssohn’s incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. My pieces will be a contemporary foil to the Mendelssohn, offering a stark contrast to his music and hopefully creating a new context to hear the work. The project is a collaboration with the Dance and Film department as well. The idea is to present the entire incidental music intercut with my music and accompanied by dance and video projections. It’s going to be quite a swirl. The work will be premiered February 10, 2013 in South Hadley, MA at Mount Holyoke College. Stay tuned for more details!
May and June have been a swirl of activity. Two premieres, many shows, and new projects taking shape. Here’s a quick rundown of all the good times:
May began with a great trip to Madison, WI where I was a featured composer at the first ever New Music Everywhere festival. The festival took a pub-crawl approach to New Music presentation offering three concerts in one day at venues throughout Madison. My works Is it Auburn? and We Choose to Go to the Moon were included on the festival. On May 10th the Heavy Hands Quartet premiered my new Bass Quartet Alone Together on Vicky Chow’s Contagious Sounds series at the Gershwin Hotel. The show included premieres by Tristan Perich and Jonah Rosenberg, alongside works by the Heavy Handers themselves.
Sleeping Giant’s Histories came together for a premiere at Issue Project Room by the Deviant Septet. This incarnation included new contributions from Ted Hearne and Timo Andres. Deviant repeated the feat a week later at the Atlas Theater in Washington, DC. You can read about these performances here, here and here. The last week of May also saw my piece RE: You performed to perfection by Concert Black on Kathleen Supove’s Music With A View festival at the Flea Theater. Concert Black absolutely destroyed the piece. It was a pleasure to watch.
June began with Face the Music playing Night Mixes on Simone Dinnerstein’s Neighborhood Classics series. The concert was two blocks from my apartment at PS 321. I felt very hometown watching the fearless Face the Music kids play my music. A week later Ensemble ACJW premiered my new piece Beginnings for piano 4-Hands, string quartet, and double bass on their final show of the season at LPR alongside new works by Ryan Gallagher and David Bruce. It was a delight to work with them on this piece. Finally, Sleeping Giant presented their much beloved Summer Show, which basically meant a ton of awesome music followed by drinking. Heavy Hands gave a repeat performance of Alone Together and Mellissa Hughes and cellist Richard Vaudrey gave a beautiful rendition of We Choose to Go to the Moon.
I have a nice break from concerts until August. In the meantime I’ve begun work on more email songs and a new percussion trio commissioned by a consortium of awesome trios. Stay tuned for details!
April is full of concerts, come see me at one of them!
Thursday, April 5, 7PM
Night Mixes
Face the Music
The Tank
151 W. 46th Street
New York, NY
The teen new music ensemble Face the Music plays my Night Mixes alongside Steve Reich’s Double Sextet and Philip Glass’s Glassworks. Check out this great NY Times article about Face the Music.
Details and tickets here.
Thursday, April 5, 9 PM
Why are you not answering?
Color Field Ensemble
The Gershwin Hotel
7 E. 27th Street
New York, NY
That’s right Thursday, April 5 is back to back Honstein. Dash over to the Gershwin after Face the Music’s set and catch the Color Field Ensemble with special guests Owen Weaver, Alejandro Acierto and Derek Johnson play my Why are you not answering? Music by Adam Haws, James Holt and Jeff Weston will also be on the show.
Details here.
Friday, April 6, 730 PM
We Choose to Go to the Moon
Quince Vocal Ensemble
upTOWN underGROUND
201 W. 113th at 7th Ave (Adam Clayton Powell)
basement entrance
Quince is in town all the way from Bowling Green, Ohio and they’ll perform the Bari Sax and Soprano version of my We Choose to Go to the Moon. Advanced tickets only for this one. Spoiler alert, you get booze with the tickets.
Details here.
Thursday, April 12, 730 PM
Barton’s Blues
Kim Perlak
Cactus Cafe
2247 Guadalupe Street
Austin, TX
Guitarist Kim Perlak plays my Barton’s Blues for her CD release show at the Cactus Cafe. I’m happy to say I’ll be in town getting ready for Fast Forward Austin, so I’ll be at the concert. Come say hi!
Details here.
Sunday, April 15, 730 PM
Waterloo Dance Hall
Bel Cuore Sax Quartet
Fast Forward Austin
ND 501
501 North I-35
Austin, TX
Yes, Bel Cuore Sax Quartet is going to rock Waterloo Dance Hall and you should see that, but what I’m really excited for is the second annual Fast Forward Austin. Too many great things to mention. If you’re in Austin, don’t miss it, seriously.
Details and more here.
Sunday, April 15, 430 PM
We Choose to Go to the Moon
Color Field Ensemble
Midwest Museum of American Art
429 South Main Street
Elkhart, IN
The intrepid Color Field Ensemble play my We Choose to Go to the Moon in Elkhart, Indiana. They share the bill with Quince Vocal Ensemble.
Details here.
Friday, April 20, 730 PM
NIght Mixes
Face the Music
Music at First
124 Henry Street
Brooklyn Heights
Face the Music once again plays my Night Mixes this time on a set with Angelica Negron’s El Gran Caleidoscopio and Steve Reich’s Double Sextet. The show is part of Wil Smith’s wonderful Music at First series. Bassist-composer Florent Ghys will also play a set.
Details here.
Though it may have felt more like spring than winter, February and March were nonetheless a flurry of activity. Here are some highlights:
Copland House
For about four weeks I had the privilege of staying at Copland House, which as the name suggests was Copland’s house. Now outfitted for extended stay composer residencies, Copland House is a stunning place to work. Nestled in the woods, a stone’s throw from the Hudson, a studio with gorgeous floor to ceiling windows, and an entire house outfitted with modest, but tasteful, mid-century furniture, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at ‘Rock Hill’ as they call it. During my stay I managed to write a good chunk of music while also making my way through a ton of Copland scores, because that’s what you do when you’re in the man’s home. It was an unforgettable experience for which I’m extremely grateful.
Premieres
Before, during and after Copland House I had a handful of premieres. The first was with Ensemble ACJW at Skidmore College as part of Sleeping Giant’s collaborative piece Histories. The performance was repeated at Weill Hall. The local rag had a few things to say about that. Sleeping Giant teams up with the Deviant Septet for another reincarnation of Histories in late May at Issue Project Room. More on that later.
Next, the Color Field Ensemble premiered a new email song, I know the feeling. This piece completes the Why are you not answering? collection. Color Field were featured artists at the Red Note New Music Festival an annual event at Illinois State University in Normal, IL. New Yorkers, you can hear them play it again on April 5, when they’ll be joined by Derek Johnson and Owen Weaver for a set at the Gershwin Hotel on Vicky Chow’s Contagious Sounds series. Until then, check out the demo for the piece here.
Finally, the Hunter Symphony gave the official premiere of my new orchestral work This is Not Mother Nature. I’ve spent the past year working with the Symphony as their composer in residence. It was so much fun for me to spend time with the orchestra. Read more about the piece here. Recordings from the concert will be available soon.
Fast Forward Austin
While the big day is still two weeks away, we at Fast Forward Austin were still hard at work these past few months. In February we presented our first ever NYC show at the Gershwin Hotel. Owen Weaver and the Bel Cuore Sax Quartet were on hand for a great night. See what some folks had to say about it here and here. Then in March we teamed up with London based Nonclassical to help curate their SXSW showcase. A host of ATX artists were on the bill including Aiana string quartet, Line Upon Line percussion, the Bel Cuore sax quartet, bassist P. Kellach Wallach, and Owen Weaver. You can check out a few articles about the event on Feast of Music, The Austin American Statesman and WQXR.
A demo for my new email song, ‘I know the feeling’.
I know the feeling
This will be the third movement of Why are you not answering?. Color Field Ensemble premiered the piece at the Red Note Music Festival in Normal, Illinois but all you New Yorkers can see it on April 5 at the Gershwin. Special guests Derek Johnson, Owen Weaver, and Alejandro Acierto will join the Color Fielders for the show. It’s going to be really good! Details here.
I’m excited to announce that I’ve received a 2012 Aaron Copland Award. I’ll be spending four weeks at Aaron Copland’s house soaking in the atmosphere and writing a ton of music. I’m honored to have this opportunity and can not wait to get to work!
|
Music
Large Ensemble
Chamber
Solo
Vocal
Electronic
Other
|