Hailed by the press as "highly gifted," having "creative powers working on a higher 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 the changing seasons, crashing waves and Dali's melting clocks to animated cartoons and the life of New York Mets Baseball catcher Mike Piazza.
A Copland Award recipient, recent performances included the European premiere and sixteen additional performances of Dancing Games by the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire (France), Jonathan Schiffman, conducting, Wind Quintet by the Philharmonia Quintet (Poland), Embracing the Wind by the Aureole Trio and New York Harp Trio, Bright Horizons, commissioned for the 100th anniversary of the IHS Orchestra and the world premiere of Crimson Earth by the University of Connecticut Wind Ensemble under Jeffrey Renshaw.
Recent premieres include the Louisville Orchestra world premiere of Electric Lines, a work previously selected for the Minnesota Orchestra and American Composers Orchestra's Whitaker New Music Readings, a new song cycle for baritone and chamber ensemble called Winter Songs for baritone-bass David Neal and the Society for New Music, commissioned through the New Yok State Music Fund, and a new work for the American Modern Ensemble called Eating Variations, for baritone and chamber ensemble.
Other ensembles that have performed Paterson's works include The New York New Music Ensemble, Fireworks Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, California EAR Unit, Cygnus, Ensemble Aleph (Paris), Ensemble Nouvelles Consonances (Belgium), the Kairos String Quartet, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, the Russian Chamber Orchestra, the MANCA Festival presented by the Centre National de Creation Musicale (CIRM) and the June in Buffalo new music festival.
Upcoming and recent commissions through the 2009-10 season include Eternal Reflections for the Volti choir of San Francisco, Tongue and Groove alto sax and marimba played with six mallets for Jeremy Justeson and a consortium of saxophonists and a new work entitled The Book of Goddesses for the MAYA trio and choreographed dancers. Paterson is also working on a new, feature-length, two-act opera entitled A Child Possessed, based on the award-winning book by R.C. Hutchinson, with writer and librettist David Cote.
Paterson has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Aspen Music Festival, Cornell University and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, in addition to grants and awards from Meet The Composer, the American Music Center, ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, the Jerome Composers Commissioning Program, the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, the Copland Award and the Society for New Music's Brian M. Israel Prize. Paterson appears on recordings for Mode Records, Bridge Records, Centaur Records, Capstone, and Riax.
Born in 1970, Paterson was raised in Buffalo, New York, 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, Aaron Jay Kernis, 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 two-year-old son Dylan.
[May, 2009]
