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In big news, I was awarded a 2025 Fromm Music Foundation commission. I will be composing a percussion quartet with the Colin Currie Quartet in the UK.
Full Press Release Here
On Saturday, December 20th, Rocket City New Music premieres my Everything, Anywhere for large chamber ensemble at Avilution Hanger in Huntsville, AL.
Concert Blurb
Rocket City New Music once again transforms an airplane hangar into a concert hall for our 2025 Season Finale, Please Repeat The Question. World-class musicians from across the country gather in Huntsville to explore some of the most fundamental yet confounding aspects of the human experience through art. We don’t promise answers—but we never stop asking the questions.
Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question (1908)
David Lang - Cheating, Lying, Stealing (1993, rev. 1995)
Ted Hearne - The Answer to the Questions That Wings Ask (2016)
Gregory Vajda - Pulitzer Portrait (2025)
Robert Honstein - Everything, Anywhere (2025)
Julius Eastman - Stay On It (1973)
Program Notes
Everything, Anywhere for eight instruments, is a meditation on the human arc inspired by the memory of Paul C. Blau. The piece reflects on the idea of a life well-lived—one filled with deep connections, meaningful experiences, and insatiable curiosity.
The composition’s three contrasting movements trace a journey from anxious beginnings to joyful affirmation. The first, Wanderlust, portrays a potent mixture of promise and anxiety, echoing the turbulent ebb and flow of youth. Driving rhythms, sudden textural shifts, and yearning melodic interjections express this volatile energy.
The second movement, Doubt, is a solitary contemplation. Unresolved chords circulate in pulseless, hazy progressions, painting a nocturnal image of growing disquiet and lingering uncertainty.
Finally, the last movement, Bounce Back, is a vibrant, joyful reaffirmation. The instability of the previous music gives way to an overflowing sense of love and vitality as the rhythmic, ebullient music bounds to a brilliant conclusion.
Everything, Anywhere was commissioned by Rocket City New Music with the generous support of Constance Blau in loving memory of Paul C. Blau. It was premiered December 20, 2025 at Avilution in Huntsville, Alabama by Rocket City New Music.
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This past month, I was thankful to have a residency in Hong Kong with The Upstrike:Project, culminating in a Portrait Concert. Working with them on the new work Yet in my sad heart was a highlight. Here’s some photos and videos from their rehearsals!
The work is now available here: https://www.roberthonstein.com/yet-in-my-sad-heart
Program Notes
Yet in my sad heart for percussion quartet and track draws inspiration from the opening of Chopin’s Prelude No. 8 in F sharp Minor. The title comes from pianist Alfred Cortot’s vivid description of the prelude: “The snow falls, the wind screams, and the storm rages; yet in my sad heart,the tempest is the worst to behold.”
Chopin’s Prelude, marked Molto agitato, is a powerful and technically demanding work. It features a continuous flow of thirty-second notes in the right hand against triplet sixteenths in the left, creating a tempestuous, virtuosic soundscape. Within this intricate polyrhythm, a melancholic melody emerges, giving voice to the “sad heart” described by Cortot.
My piece, Yet in my sad heart, offers a hazy, dream-like reinterpretation of the Chopin. Fragments of the Prelude arise from the keyboard percussion instruments, slowed down and stretched out against long, sustained synth tones. Meanwhile, as the music shifts into different key areas, the same four chords that began the Chopin, slowly cycle in the background. We stay in this space, a web of percussion, long synth chords and pulsating rhythms, until eventually a delicate cloud of piano arpeggiations in the track take over, slowly enveloping the live musicians. Finally, the piece culminates in a stream-of-consciousness soundscape of swirling, ghostly tones mixed with real world audio samples, eerily concluding this strange, Chopin-inspired fever dream.
SONNETS: Robert Honstein Composer Portrait Concert
Delighted to announce this concert featuring all works of Emmy-nominted composer Robert Honstein, including new arrangements of his works, AND A BRAND NEW PERCUSSION QUARTET written for Up:Strike. This concert will mark Robert’s 7-day residency in Hong Kong. He will be working with the students at the HKAPA and members of Up:Strike. Get your TIX NOW!
2025. June 7 (SAT) 8 pm Sheung Wan Civic Centre Theatre (5/f)
Louisville’s Music for a Purpose recently premiered my arrangement of Olmsted’s second movement for string quartet. Enjoy!
Here’s some wonderful photos from my work with BalletCollective., who premiered my 20-minute ballet Love Me While I’m Here, with choreography by Omar Román De Jesús.
Image of Kennedy Targosz, Ruby Lister, David Gabriel, Devin Alberda and Sebastián Villarini-Vélez in Love me while I’m here by Brendon Cook/BFA.com
Ruby Lister and David Garcia in “Love Me While I’m Here.” Photo © Whitney Browne.
Ruby Lister, David Gabriel, Devin Alberda, and Sebastián Villarini-Vélez in Love me while I’m here captured by Brendon Cook/BFA.com
Kennedy Targosz, Ruby Lister, David Gabriel and Devin Alberda in “Love Me While I’m Here.” Photo © Whitney Browne.
David Gabriel and Ruby Lister in rehearsal for Love me while I’m here.