Early Works
Starting with the Sextet for Strings in A-Major (Mighty Love) (2007), Robinson built the Simfonica engine on a middle-rich string sextet of 2 violins, 2 violas, cello & bass. An autobiographical fantasy, Mighty Love is the first five stages of romantic love in bold musical prose. The 50-minute work is programmatic; a 1st-person movie soundtrack of a bass player who started dating this amateur athlete he met at a club. There’s a ghost, they go dancing, take a 5-mile run, have sex scenes, chase each other ’round the woods and soon start merging (cathecting) before they get engaged and almost break up. Listen to the start of Celebrations, and how it dawns on him he wants to marry her. He pops the question. She teases him, and then they “ring” their families. And then the arguing starts.
Rhythm and Class
The next suite of compositions formed the Gitcha Groove On! suite of 2009. This begins with two German-romantic works for solo English horn (Idyll) & solo oboe (Gigue Rondo) with string quintet, based on famous melodies by Mahler and Bach respectively. The Gigue Rondo features an extendable dance groove when the soloist could actually improvise.
This intersection of musical styles was a path explored by Duke Ellington. Recalling how many great composers often wrote subtle dance elements into symphonies, he found this street wide open to ride very explicitly to downtown Detroit on the title track Gitcha Groove On!.
From downtown he continued down Bagley into Mexicantown for some spicy-hot Pork ‘n Beans, with cole slaw to cool off. Finally he recalls his strategy to enjoy learning in school without getting beat up in Highland Park, MI: City of Trees. This work blended hip-hop, funk, gospel and jazz for a gritty testament emerging out of the Detroit riots of 1967-68.
Robinson discovered that grooves not only make a natural contrast to heady counterpoint, but they also make audience participation possible with toy percussion. Robinson’s music so far references many popular styles, if only in passing: classic rock, funk, blues, jazz, Latin, samba, African, R&B, gospel, funk, hip-hop, reggae, tango, jubilee, huapango, bluegrass and country. These works hold up a mirror to America and prove that classical music is a living art that most people can use if taught the keys.
Sample five works in this short video from the CTS inaugural concert in 2010.