Voice Program: vocal coach, accompaniment

Mark Robson began his musical pursuits at an early age, first as a pianist and later as a flutist and organist. He began to compose when he was nine. Subsequent studies culminated in degrees from Oberlin College and the University of Southern California, enhanced by several years of study of piano and Ondes Martenot in Paris; he includes among his teachers Lydia Frumkin, Yvonne Loriod, Alain Motard, John Perry and James Bonn. Mr. Robson’s talent has been recognized with several scholarships and awards; these include a prize in the International Piano Competition for Contemporary Music of St. Germain-en-Laye, the Corvina Cultural Circle Honorary Hungarian Award, the USC master’s student Keyboard Departmental Award and the first Michael Carson Memorial Award given by the Opera Guild of Southern California.

From January 1991 until June 2005, Mr. Robson worked on the music staff of the Los Angeles Opera as a répétiteur and eventually as Asst. Chorus Master/Asst. Conductor. He often provided recitative accompaniment at the harpsichord for their productions and performed onstage in the role of virtuoso Boleslao Lazinski in Fedora. As a conductor he has appeared with the Brentwood-Westwood Symphony Orchestra and has assisted at the renowned festivals in Salzburg and Spoleto (Italy). He is a founding member of Piano Spheres, a collective of pianists which has been presenting new and unfamiliar keyboard works in the Los Angeles area since 1994. His playing has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “massively virtuosic” and noted for its “display of dazzling speed, exquisite control and surprising delicacy”. As a recitalist, he has concertized at the Salle Marguerite Gaveau and Salle Cortot in Paris, the Paleis Het Loo in the Netherlands, the L.A. County Art Museum, the Kennedy Center, James Madison Univerity and the Spoleto Festival. He has given multiple performances of Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus and presented a cycle of the complete Beethoven sonatas. As a chamber performer he has also appeared at Disney Hall in Los Angeles and for the Santa Monica-based Jacaranda series. From August 2006 until May 2007 he taught in the collaborative arts program at Chapman University. He joined the faculty of CalArts in September 2007 as a voice and diction coach/collaborative arts instructor.

As a composer, Mr. Robson has been programmed on concerts in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Barcelona and Paris. The Brentwood-Westwood Symphony Orchestra has premiered two of his orchestral works, Apollo Rising and Christmas Suite. Other works include a trio for piano, cello and clarinet entitled Dances and Dirges, works commissioned for the synagogue, a piano cycle 24 Preludes for the Left Hand, the melodrama Initiation for speaker, piano and percussion, a Trio for Three Bassoons and several song cycles. One of these, A Child of Air, has been recorded by soprano Patricia Prunty (accompanied by the composer) and performed several times in New York, Los Angeles, Minnesota and at the winter Ravinia Festival.