Robert Paterson
Hailed by the press as having "creative powers working on a high plane" and writing "exuberant and rhythmically vital music marked by energy and a wonderful sense of color," Composer Robert Paterson's richly colorful, wildly eclectic and intensely rhythmic" music is increasingly in demand by musicians and audiences alike. Influenced by the past and present as well as visual art, nature, and machines, Paterson's recent compositions are inspired by everything from crashing waves and the changing seasons to Dali's melting clocks to the life of New York Mets Baseball catcher Mike Piazza. A Copland Award recipient, performances this season include the Louisville Orchestra world premiere of Electric Lines, an orchestral work previously selected for the Minnesota Orchestra Readings and American Composers Orchestra's Whitaker New Music Readings.Recent performances include Embracing the Wind by the Aureole Trio and New York Harp Trio, Wind Quintet by the Philharmonia Quintet (Cracow), The Essence of Gravity, commissioned for the San Francisco-based Volti choir, Bright Horizons, commissioned for the 100th anniversary of the IHS Orchestra and the world premiere of Crimson Earth with the University of Connecticut Wind Ensemble conducted by Jeffrey Renshaw. Commissions and premieres in 2008 include new works for the Society for New Music, Volti Choir and the Fireworks Ensemble in NYC. Past performances include those by The New York New Music Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, California EAR Unit, Cygnus, Ensemble Aleph (Paris), Ensemble Nouvelles Consonances (Belgium) and the Russian Chamber Orchestra, as well as the 2001 Imagine Festival, the MANCA 2002 Festival presented by the Centre National de Creation Musicale (CIRM), and the June in Buffalo new music festival.
Paterson has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, in addition to grants and awards from Meet The Composer, the American Music Center, ASCAP, American Composers Forum, the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, the Copland Award, and the Society for New Music's Brian M. Israel Prize. Paterson recently won the Eighth Annual Auros Group for New Music Composition Competition for his Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, and appears on recordings for Mode Records, Bridge Records, Centaur Records, Capstone, and Riax.
Born in 1970, Paterson was raised in Buffalo, the son of a sculptor and a painter. Although his first love was percussion, he soon discovered a passion for composition, writing his first piece at age thirteen. Paterson is active as a professional percussionist and pioneered the development of a six-mallet marimba technique, presenting the world's first all six-mallet marimba recital at the Eastman School of Music in 1993. Paterson has received degrees from Eastman (BM), Indiana University (MM), and Cornell University (DMA), and his composition teachers include Frederick Fox, Christopher Rouse, Joseph Schwantner, Roberto Sierra, and Steven Stucky. He resides in New York City with his wife, Victoria, a violinist with whom he formed the American Modern Ensemble, and their son Dylan.
www.robpaterson.com
