Robert Black

Robert Carlisle Black (April 28, 1950 – November 14, 1993) was an American conductor, pianist and composer. He was most particularly associated with the promotion, performance and recording of contemporary classical music, but he also played and conducted the standard repertoire.

Life Robert Black was born in Dallas, Texas in 1950. The pianist William Black (1952–2003) was his brother. He started his piano studies at age 5, presenting his first public recital at 13. He studied at Oberlin College and the Juilliard School in New York, where his teachers included Beveridge Webster, Roger Sessions and David Diamond. He taught at Oberlin, Stanford University, Long Island University (C. W. Post Campus), Princeton University and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

His early recording of works by Franz Liszt was nominated by the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest for a Grand Prix du Disque.

He founded the New York New Music Ensemble in 1975, was a member of Speculum Musicae from 1978, and founded the Prism Chamber Orchestra in 1983. He was music director of the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra from 1987 to 1993. In 1992 he was appointed Principal Conductor and artistic director of the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra in Kuopio, Finland.

He appeared at the Bang on a Can Festival in New York, the New York Philharmonic's Horizons Festival, the Warsaw Autumn Festival, the ISCM's World Music Days in Athens, the New England Conservatory Jazz Festival, the Grand Teton Festival, and the LSU Contemporary Music Festival. Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks Concerto, Tod Machover's Nature's Breath and Towards the Centre, Miriam Gideon's Five Sonnets From Shakespeare and Symphonica brevis Louise Talma's Full Circle, Charles Wuorinen's New York Notes, William Thomas McKinley's Boston Overture, Stephen Jaffe's The Rhythm of the Running Plough, and works by Beethoven, Roger Sessions

Robert Black came to serious composition very late in his life. His works were particularly influenced by Charles Wuorinen and Ralph Shapey, His sole piece for solo piano was Foramen Habet!, dedicated to Beveridge Webster.

Robert Black died of melanoma in Palo Alto, California, on November 14, 1993, aged 43, survived by his wife, parents and two siblings.