About the Composer

Sacred Music
Robert is a member of the Latin mass choir at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Chelsea. His sacred music is much influenced by the Gregorian chant which he regularly performs at St. Mary’s. In 1995 the Latin mass choir gave the premiere of his mass Missa Sanctissima Maria. This mass and a number of Robert’s motets are in regular use at St. Mary’s. Robert’s sacred music has been performed in a variety of churches including St. Peter’s Church, Ealing; the Oxford Oratory; Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden and St. Woolos Cathedral, Newport, South Wales.

In 1999 Robert wrote a passion setting for the early music group, The Burgundian Cadence. Setting his own adaptation of words from St. John’s Gospel, along with poems by Carl Cook, Robert created a haunting 40 minute work for just 4 unaccompanied voices. Passion was premiered by The Burgundian Cadence on a UK tour which included concerts at Southwark Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and Lincoln Cathedral. The Burgundian Cadence went on to record Passion for a issue on CD.

Choral Music
In 1993 London Concord Singers, musical director Malcolm Cottle, gave the premiere of Robert’s Three Prayers at a concert in St. Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road. This marked the start of a fruitful collaboration between Robert and the choir; they have gone on to premiere a number of Robert’s works. On World Aids Day 1995, in the presence of the Master of the Queens Music, Malcolm Williamson, they premiered Robert’s cantata Memorare for choir and solo French horn. Robert wrote his 14-part motet, I Vespri di Santa Cecilia for the choir’s 30th anniversary celebrations and in 2000 London Concord Singers sang Robert’s science fantasy piece, The Black Dragon in celebration of the new millennium and the Year of the Dragon. In August 2004 London Concord Singers will be premiering Robert’s motet Deus in Adjutorium in Barcelona cathedral.

In 1994 Robert founded the choir FifteenB. At their debut concert, in the Chapel at the House of St. Barnabas in Soho, they premiered Robert’s Missa Cantate Dominum Canticum Novum and his cantata Vocibus Mulierum Women’s Voices. The cantata examined the role of women within the Roman Catholic Church; Robert subsequently wrote a sequence of substantial cantatas for FifteenB examining awkward subjects. In 1998, thanks to a grant from the National Lottery, FifteenB and the Salomon Wind Quintet premiere The Young Man and Death – A Dialogue, a work which explores a dying man’s attitude to death using words by Rabindranath Tagore and ideas by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. In June 2000 at the Chelsea Festival, FifteenB, conducted by Paul Ayres, premiered Robert’s Requiem Mass, a substantial setting for unaccompanied choir of the liturgy for the dead. The choir have made 2 subsequent appearances at the Festival. In 2002 they sang Robert’s The Barbarian at the Gate, a setting of three of Helen Waddell’s translations from medieval Latin lyrics. For this performance they were partnered by Philharmonia Brass who also performed Robert’s fanfare, The Barbarians are Coming. At the 2004 festival, the choir gave a programme entitled Ave Verum, which presented 6 of Robert’s motets alongside settings of the Ave Verum by Byrd, Mozart, Faure, Saint-Saens and Elgar.

In 1998 Robert was commissioned by Crouch End Festival Chorus to write an unaccompanied piece for them. This became Here be Angels, a substantial motet for double-chorus which looks at medieval attitudes to angels using words by Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite and Milton. Crouch End Festival Chorus, conductor David Temple, premiered the work in March 1998. In 2002, London Concord Singers gave the premiere of the revised version of the work.

Solo songs
Robert’s song cycle Songs of Love and Loss uses works by a variety of poets to explore attitudes to death and bereavement. The final song, Memorare describes the uplifting effect of an AIDS candlelight vigil; this poem was also used in the final movement of the cantata Memorare. The song cycle was premiered at Burgh House in a version for 2 Sopranos, Mezzo-Soprano, French Horn and Piano but counter-tenor David Greiner subsequently gave the premiere of the revised version for Mezzo-Soprano, Clarinet and Piano. The song cycle received its American premiere in 2000 as part of World Aids Day celebrations at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

Robert’s cycle of short songs for alto and guitar,Let This Harvest Pass, O Love was premiered in Burgh House by Rupert Damerell (counter-tenor) and Andrew Keeping (guitar). And in 2001, David Greiner (counter-tenor), Amanda Chancellor (viola) and Paul Webster (piano), gave the premiere of Robert’s song cycle Quickening at Lauderdale House. The cycle sets poems by Christina Rosetti on the twin themes of winter leading to new spring and death leading to new life and resurrection.

Stage, Opera and Orchestral
In 1999 Robert wrote incidental music for Coni Ciongoli-Koepfinger’s play Candle Dancing. This substantial score for choir, soloists, percussion and organ involves settings of the requiem mass and settings of the writings of Julian of Norwich. The play, complete with Robert’s score, was premiered in April 1999 by the Healing Arts Theater Company at the Veronica’s Veil Audtorium, Pittsburgh. Robert’s score subsequently received a commendation in the annual Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s critics’ pick of the year.

Robert and Coni followed up this collaboration with work on an opera. Garrett, with a libretto by Robert based on Coni’s play Garrett, the Blue Giraffe. The opera Garrett was premiered by FifteenB Productions in June 2001 at Hoxton Hall, in a production staged by Darren Royston with Damien Thantrey as Garrett and Rosemary Forbes-Butler as Israfel.

Robert is currently working on a 3 Act chamber opera, The Weekend based on the novel of the same name by Peter Cameron.

In September 2003, the Salomon Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Cottle gave the premieres of three of Robert’s orchestral works at a concert in the Tabernacle Arts Centre, Notting Hill. The works involved were a short prelude, toccata and a kind of fugue, the tone poem Postcards from the Fitties and Jacob and the Angel, a homo-erotic reworking of the story from Genesis of Jacob wrestling with an Angel.

Some Background
Robert was born in 1955 in Cleethorpes, North Lincolnshire. After studying Mathematics at the University of Manchester he took a job in Scotland; whilst there he became the organist and choir master of the Church St. Andrew and St. George, Rosyth, Fife. When his job took him to London, Robert joined the London Philharmonic Choir for a time and took over as musical director to the Pink Singers 3 months after the group was founded. The Pink Singers were London’s first Lesbian and Gay choir. An open entry group, whilst Robert was musical director they toured to Stockholm and Berlin, joined the National Federation of Music Societies (now Making Music) and performed Hanns Eisler’s Die Mutter at their 5th birthday celebrations. Robert also worked with a number of cabaret artists, for whom he wrote and arranged songs; ‘The Insinuendos’ performed Robert’s songs in London and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. After leaving the Pink Singers in 1989 Robert wrote a musical, Choices and formed his own company to perform it at the London Lesbian and Gay Centre and the Bridge Lane Theatre, Battersea. Robert’s musical review, The Pleasure of Your Company was premiered in 1991. Since then Robert has concentrated on writing more serious classical music but enjoys the occasional foray into cabaret. He arranged his song Summer Rain for 4’s Company and they performed it at the Holywell Music Rooms, Oxford and Ensemble Aleph performed Microprocessor Man at the Bath Festival.

Robert writes CD reviews for MusicWeb and writes CD reviews, Opera reviews and feature articles for Music and Vision.