Enjoying this, Rick! ~Wanted to let you know that the concert YouTube is set as private - please make it public, if you'd like😊😊

Brother please text me your number at 412-818-9979. we should have lunch. Im just an hour away near Wheeling.

This reading of a dramatic elegy captured my shock, grief and recovery when my FATHER suddenly passed in 2011. He was so grounded, generous, and loved to dance.
I've decided in 2020 to include this work in a career-long series I'm calling "New American Elegies." First Grief is now considered Book 2 in that series. Hence NAEBk2

Robinson - First Grief NAEBk2 reading

MIDI realization of Essay for Orchestra.

Essay for Orchestra is an action-packed piece in three sections. It explores color, gesture, and a fixation on one particular harmonic cell. The outer sections are faster and the middle section is slower, with the latter giving the audience a bit of a chance to breathe while the performers take them on a very circuitous journey.

Essay For Orchestra

The Chaconne is about humanity stuck in the paradoxical cycles we are seeing in 2023, of both experiencing and denying a climate change crisis, of coming together to both solve and disrupt solutions, of corporate shareholders both forcing and holding back adaptation, of the living creatures both rising to the occasion and losing repeatedly because efforts may be too little and too late.

Ecclesiastes Ch. 3  : 
There is a time for everything, and a season for everything under the sun:  a time to be born and a time to perish, a time to plant and a time to uproot,  a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…

  The musicians playing here are:
Rachel Harding Klaus, violin 1
Hai-Xin Wu, violin 2
Michael Chen, viola 1
Jasper Zientek, viola 2
Damon Coleman, violoncello
Rick Robinson, double bass
Mike List, percussion

The thumbnail I took while passing East Palestine, Ohio on the PA turnpike March 6, 2023. Consider what we are doing to our health and planet.

See the full concert at https://youtu.be/EkuHAYDpsA0?t=383
And visit cuttime.com for more info about my work and compositions.

Music For Interesting Times world premiere

archival

Robinson - Chaconne: For Interesting Times DIA premiere

Erbarme Dich, from Bach's St. Matthew Passion
Andrey Nemzer, countertenor
Sandro Leal-Santiesteban, violin
Resonance Chamber Orchestra
Maria Sensi Sellner, conductor
from "Lamentation" performed in March 2015 at Waverly Presbyterian Church, Regent Square, Pittsburgh, PA

This was the first Resonance Works performance of Bach - in our 2nd season

Bach - Erbarme Dich from the St. Matthew Passion

Pairing disparate musical styles like jazz and classical, “Gitcha Groove On!” takes its name from ROCO’s 44th world premiere commission of the same name by Rick Robinson (in his ROCO debut). It’s a jazz-infused classical commission for the full orchestra plus trapset, the product of ROCO winning the New Music Box and ASCAP “Music Alive” Partnership award. Poulenc’s “Sinfonietta” and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Much Ado About Nothing” complete the program, conducted by Andrés Cárdenes. Performed September 26, 2015, at The Church of St. John the Divine, Houston, TX.

Robinson, Gitcha Groove On!

Aaron Copland explains how he developed his distinctly American style during a lecture at Interlochen Arts Academy on May 6, 1967.

Aaron Copland on: His musical style

Aaron Copland asserts the importance of the arts in America during a lecture at Interlochen Arts Academy on May 6, 1967.

Aaron Copland on: the importance of the arts

The CutTime Players have an upcoming performance at the Birmingham Temple but first Chris Felcyn talks with Mr. CutTime himself, bassist-arranger-composer-founder Rick Robinson.

Rick Robinson - April 3, 2018

Quinn Mason
19th Amendment for clarinet, violin and piano

Performed live from Moody Performance Hall in Dallas, TX by Ensemble MAKE:

Danny Goldman, clarinet
Grace Wollet, violin
Mikhail Berestnev

Quinn Mason 19th Amedment For Clarinet, Violin And Piano

After a decades-long career with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, violinist Joseph Striplin recently retired from the DSO. WRCJ’s Peter Whorf speaks with the current Grosse Pointe Symphony Orchestra maestro about the next chapter in his musical life, and the beginning of his path to the violin...

Joseph Striplin - December 9, 2020

To play and adapt classical music for a career have been my greatest joys. Then I began creating new music to share with broader communities in new ways.

While playing in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for decades, I began to put classical newbies at the center of my music-making with two unique ensembles; CutTime Players and CutTime Simfonica®. Together, we began to reset classical music (esp. public domain) so everyone knows what to actually do with it.

Originally a symbol meaning fast and lively, CutTime® means to create shortcuts into classical music.
Because if to most Americans, classical music seems so European, ancient, exclusive, restrained, dry and somewhat pointless, then we the musicians need to smarten it up, and show immediate benefits for regular people that stick, esp. outside of the arts bubbles.

Concert halls and traditional concerts are designed to maximize the potential personal impact for the greatest number. The sonic blanket of acoustic instruments is warmest with quiet, theater rules. 
But a good counterpoint to this environment is "casual classical," background or foreground, well-produced or cheap, that can reset the classical arts IRL. So let's make "clam" gig-gil-y fun, sexy and instantly profound, and stick it everywhere!

CutTime® plays symphonic and classical music with as few as 4-8 players. We show up everywhere, make classical active, rewarding and "info-taining." We amplify lightly, and often add a drummer and audience participation. Live classical can now work almost anywhere, from living rooms to popular venues, naturally schools and churches, but also shaded summer streets and backyards. 

Sexy movie music, mad counterpoint, and street beats meet in my compositions City of Trees, Pork 'n Beans, Gitcha Groove On!, Phantom Detroit and First Grief. Modulations, drama and fugatos make VERY sexy action music.
Drums and historic grooves let us rock dramatically. The folk music of our time refreshes the 19th-Century sonata forms. Then, we should be ready for some Brahms.

Thanks for listening! Be sure to share. I'm done with Twitter. 
Search for "cuttime" on YouTube.
- Rick

Robinson - Chaconne: For Interesting Times DIA premiere

Mr. CutTime

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