Robert Taylor

Brief   History

STUDIES
 

   -  Formal:

	University of Southern California, Princeton, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome) 

	PhD (Laurea), Santa Cecilia	

   - With Composers:

	Ernst Krenek, Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt

PERFORMANCES

   - New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rome, Berlin, Utrecht,  other cities; Portugal, Argentina; 

	UNH and other universities, world-wide (numerous); radio broadcasts (e.g., New York, 

	Berlin, San Francisco).  Performance-venues have included The New School, New York 

	(International Society for Contemporary Music  festival),  Carnegie Recital Hall, and others.  

	Among "new music" performance-groups has been Speculum Musicae, New York.
	 

AWARDS

   - Numerous scholarships/fellowships, as player (e.g., French Horn at U.S.C.) and as composer, 

	including:  U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, Italian Government, Das Land 

	Berlin, Statlisches Institut für Musikforschung (Berlin), Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst  

	Künstler-Programm ((DAAD)Artist in Residence, Berlin), Instituut voor Sonologie (Utrecht, 

	Nederland), Princeton

BACKGROUND

   - Lived mostly in Los Angeles, New York City, Midwest, New England and, for over a decade, in 

	Europe (Rome, Florence, Utrecht, Paris, Berlin, etc.). Fluent, consequently, in several 

	languages (e.g., German, Italian).  

   - Played French Horn professionally from age fifteen to twenty-five.

   - Financed my own electronic studio as Member of Technical Staff, Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

	(Pasadena).  Worked there on Viking, Voyager and Galileo projects (unmanned space-

	missions to Mars and Jupiter) in the Deep Space Tracking Network, Computer Software 

	Quality Assurance and Technical Standards, for five years ('75-'80).  Survived subsequently 

	on savings from software-consulting, lectures, etc.

   - My electronic studio runs my version of MUSIC_IV (Bell-Labs-cum-Max Mathews, et al.) and 

	comprises four synthesizers and three computers (I own four) plus requisite audio playback 

	and recording devices.  Synths are linked, optionally under total program-control, using 

	software written by me and others, and real-time MIDI switching devices.  There is also 

	copious software for digital music-format conversion and playback, in addition to the usual 

	spread of music-applications, and a host of software utilities written by me and others.

   - I have done extensive, advanced set-theoretical studies (abstract algebra) which I 

	programmed in Algol60 and FORTRAN in a twelve-tone context (also 16- and 24-tone). 

	These were begun in Berlin, ca. 1968, continue in-progress, and have produced powerful 

	structural results in my compositions.

	Composition was, and is the impetus for these studies, which remain largely unpublished 

	(a long story).

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