Today we’d like to introduce you to Daryl Robinson.
Daryl Robinson has earned critical acclaim as a solo and collaborative artist, described by London-based Choir and Organ Magazine as a performer with “…a driving muscular poetry underpinned by nimble technique and nuanced sense of style…” Winner of both First Prize and Audience Prize in the 2012 American Guild of Organists National Competition in Organ Performance, Mr. Robinson maintains an active career as a teacher, collaborative artist, church musician, and recitalist under the auspices of Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc.
Notable recital venues include the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (Philadelphia, PA), the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.), the Shanghai Oriental Art Center (Shanghai, China), Cathédrale Saint-Pierre (Poitiers, France), Baylor University (Waco, TX), Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, WA), and the 2013 and 2016 Spreckels International Summer Organ Festival (San Diego, CA). Mr. Robinson has also been a featured artist for recent national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists, including Boston (2014), St. Louis (2015), and Houston (2016), where his performances were praised by The American Organist Magazine as demonstrating “…flawless technique and rhythmic verve…” His collaborative career has included performances with the Houston Symphony and Chorus, Mercury Baroque, the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival®, and serving as Collaborative Keyboard Artist for Houston’s two internationally-acclaimed choral ensembles: the Houston Chamber Choir and the University of Houston Moores School of Music Concert Chorale. In the summer of 2016, he served as Organist-in-Residence for the Choral Institute at the University of Oxford in England.
Multiple critically acclaimed commercial discs featuring Mr. Robinson are available, including the first commercial recording of the Glatter-Götz/Rosales organ at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on an album entitled American Fantasia (Gothic Records) and his debut solo album, Sempre Organo (ProOrgano Records), which was released in 2013. Both recordings have garnered rave reviews internationally. Selections from the disc have been heard on nationally syndicated radio programs, including Pipedreams® and With Heart and Voice. Collaborative recordings include Carolae – Music for Christmas (Naxos Records), recorded with the GRAMMY®-nominated Williamson Voices of Westminster Choir College and conductor James Jordan, and As you set out for Ithaka (Albany Records), featuring music of David Ashley White performed by the Moores School Concert Chorale under the direction of Betsy Cook Weber. Committed to routinely commissioning new solo and collaborative works featuring the organ, recent works include: Diptych, 2020 (Rachel Laurin), Fantasia on a Theme of Gustav Holst, 2016 (Aaron David Miller), Two Scherzos, 2016 (Jason Roberts), Rumba for Organ, Percussion and Dancers, 2015 (George Baker), Great is Thy Faithfulness for Organ and Tenor, 2015 (Tom Trenney), Concert Variations on ‘Nicaea’, 2014 (David Briggs), and Come, Pure Hearts: Introduction, Theme, and Variations, 2012 (David Ashley White).
In 2017, Mr. Robinson was appointed Assistant Professor and Director of Organ Studies at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music and joined the ministry staff of Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) as Cathedral Organist. He holds degrees from the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University; his major teachers include Robert Bates, Ken Cowan, and David Higgs. Previous positions have included Organist & Artist-in-Residence for South Main Baptist Church in Houston, TX and Assistant Professor of Organ at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Not a totally smooth road, but I quickly learned the value of plans b, c, or d, and have been fortunate at the end of the day to lead a fairly charmed existence. My teenage years were fairly rough as I was going through the process of coming out to my family; I ended up dropping out of high school my senior year (I was attending HSPVA as a double bass major) and didn’t receive my GED until 2006 when I was 22 years old. At that point, I enrolled as a freshman at the University of Houston and took five years to complete my undergraduate degree, took a year off, during which time I competed in the 2012 American Guild of Organists’ National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance, an event that would forever change my life and career. In 2012 I enrolled at Rice University to complete my master’s degree and graduated in 2014, took another year off, and won my first teaching job at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ. I moved to NJ in 2015 and then back to Houston in 2017 when I was hired at the Moores School of Music. Life has gone in some strange directions, but I’ve been fortunate to have a supportive network of people in my life.
Can you give our readers some background on your music?
My career now involves three jobs, really: 1. as Director of Organ Studies at the Moores School of Music, 2. as Cathedral Organist for Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal), and 3. as a touring and recording solo artist with Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc.. It’s fairly rare for musicians to just have one job and I’m very fortunate to work at UH and the Cathedral at the same time. As much as I love performing recitals, my truest and deepest passion remains to teach and collaborate with others, so these two positions really afford me a unique opportunity to pursue my passion on a daily basis.
In terms of my own performing, I’ve always been told that my expressive and rhythmic playing set me apart from other organists. In all honesty, I credit that really to my early days as a chorister in the Houston Boychoir and later as an orchestral musician. Too often, keyboardists tend to be disconnected from the broader musical world (especially organists!), and I’m really grateful that choral and orchestral music is really in my blood and truly believe that helps me understand an instrument as complex as the pipe organ better.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Growth. Plain and simple. Daily progress. I tell my students all the time that their final performance is far less important than the growth and development along the way. So often as musicians, we seek to define our success by how we compare to others – and that’s natural, and I’m a very competitive person, so in a way, I’m ok with that – but what really matters is if we are better today than we were yesterday. It’s something I never fully appreciated until I started teaching fulltime…I would hear students perform and just judge them based on their final performance but never understood where that student may have started or how much they grew. That perspective has changed everything for me in recent years. My students will also tell you, probably, that I’m a fairly meticulous and demanding teacher, as well, but also that I frequently tell them the best thing ever is for them to “put me out of business.” If I can help equip someone with the skills necessary and inspire them to teach themselves, then I’ve done the most important part of my job, I think.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.darylrobinson.com
- Email: daryl@darylrobinson.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darylarobinson
- Other: www.uh.edu/organmusic
Image Credit:
Ellen Williams, Haley Stage, Tracy Ngo
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