Robert Black
Robert Black tours the world creating unheard of music for the solo double bass, collaborating with the most adventurous composers, musicians, dancers, artists, actors, and technophiles from all walks of life. He is a founding and current member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Current collaborative projects include a 10-channel audio/video double bass installation reflection on the Anthropocene with soundartists Brian House and Sue Huang, filmed at the Freshkills landfill in NYC, and Blued Trees Project an out-door, environmental installation/performance for 24 double basses exploring the tension between ecocidal fossil fuel policies and the drive for the common good expressed in environmental justice movements for Earth rights with environmental artist Aviva Rahmani, composer Eve Beglarian, and choreographer Yoshiko Chuma. Commissions include John Luther Adams (bass quartet), Swiss composer Marcel Zaes (bass trio), Natacha Diels (bass duet), and Daniel Sabzghabaei (solo bass). Solo recordings include Philip Glass-Bass Partita and Poetry (Orange Mountain Music), Possessed (Cantaloupe Records) Modern American Bass (New World Records), The Bass Music of Christian Wolff and Giacinto Scelsi (Mode Records), and State of the Bass (O.O. Discs). Robert teaches at the Hartt School/University of Hartford, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Festival Eleazar De Carvalho (Fortaleza, Brazil).
photo by Stephanie Berger