Cited by the press as “one of the major contenders in American music” and writing “exuberant and rhythmically vital music marked by energy and a wonderful sense of color,” Robert Paterson’s music continues to be in demand by audiences and musicians alike.
For the next three years, Paterson is the Music Alive composer-in-residence with the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association, sponsored by Meet The Composer and the League of American Orchestras. This residency will culminate in a major commission for a twenty-minute work for orchestra and chorus.
A recipient of the 2011 Composer of The Year Award from the Classical Recording Foundation, Paterson is also the winner of the 2010 Cincinnati Camerata Composition Competition with his setting of Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep (text by Mary Frye). The panel chose this work from his cycle Eternal Reflections for its “expressive choral writing, text painting and imaginatively beautiful textures.”
Recent performances include the European premiere and sixteen additional performances of Dancing Games by the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire (France), Wind Quintet by the Philharmonia Quintet (Poland), Eternal Reflections, commissioned for the San Francisco-based Volti choir, Embracing the Wind by the Aureole Trio and New York Harp Trio, the Louisville Orchestra world premiere of Electric Lines, winner of the orchestra’s new music competition, and a work previously selected for the Minnesota Orchestra and American Composers Orchestra Whitaker New Music Readings
Other recent performances include Enlightened City, commissioned for the 100th anniversary of the IHS Orchestra and the world premiere of Crimson Earth by the University of Connecticut Wind Ensemble. Ensembles that have performed his music include the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, New York New Music Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, California EAR Unit, Finger Lakes Chamber Ensemble, Ensemble Aleph (Paris), Naiades Ensemble (London), Ensemble Nouvelles Consonances (Belgium), the Kairos String Quartet, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, the MANCA Festival presented by the Centre National de Création Musicale (CIRM) and the June in Buffalo new music festival.
Upcoming commissions through 2009-11 include a new work for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra to be conducted by Jaime Jaredo, two new choral works for the Chamber Choir of Europe conducted my Nicol Matt and a new work for orchestra and chorus for the Vermont Youth Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Domoto. Paterson is also embarking on an orchestral opera in two acts with writer and librettist David Cote of which two scenes have been completed.
Awards include the Copland Award, Louisville Orchestra Composition Competition, Brian Israel Prize, two ASCAP Young Composer Awards and grants from Meet The Composer, the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum and ASCAP, as well as fellowships to Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Paterson appears on recordings for Mode Records, Centaur Records, Capstone, Riax and American Modern Recordings (AMR), and he will be releasing two additional CDs of his music in 2011-12 on the AMR Label.
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, Christopher Rouse, Joseph Schwantner, Roberto Sierra, and Steven Stucky. He resides in New York City with his wife, Victoria, a violinist, and their four-year-old son Dylan.
[May, 2011]
