About Paula Robison

Paula Robison was born in Tennessee to a family of actors, writers, dancers, and musicians. She spent her childhood in Southern California, learned to play the flute in her school orchestra, and studied dance with Bella Lewitsky and theater with Jeff Corey. When she was twelve years old music claimed her heart and she knew she wanted to become a flutist. Study at the Juilliard School followed, and summers at the Marlboro Music Festival working with the great Marcel Moyse. When she was twenty years old, Leonard Bernstein invited her to be a soloist with the New York Philharmonic. When she gave her New York recital debut under the auspices of Young Concert Artists, the New York Times wrote: "Music bursts from her as naturally as leaves from trees". Soon after that Paula Robison became the first American to win First Prize at the Geneva International Competition, and her career as a world-traveling groundbreaking flute soloist was launched. When the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center was formed Ms. Robison was invited to join as a founding Artist Member. She performed with the Society for twenty seasons. During the same time she was co-director with Scott Nickrenz of the acclaimed chamber music concerts at the Spoleto Festivals, presenting many great artists early in their careers. She was awarded the Adelaide Ristori Prize for her contributions to Italian cultural life.There is a dessert named after her at the Tric-Trac Café in Spoleto, Italy, called the "Coppa Paola", and a song written for her by Sean Harkness called "Paula". In February of 2009 she rejoined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in a gala concert celebrating the opening of the newly restored Alice Tully Hall, playing music of JS Bach and William Bolcom. A passionate advocate for new music, Paula Robison has commissioned works by Leon Kirchner, Toru Takemitsu, Robert Beaser, Kenneth Frazelle, Oliver Knussen, and Lowell Liebermann, and premiered music by Pierre Boulez, Alberto Ginastera, Elliott Carter, William Schuman, Keith Jarrett, and Carla Bley, among many others. "Notturno", a wildly lyrical hymn to the joys and pains of a life in music, was written for Ms. Robison by Michael Tilson Thomas, and the two artists performed the work together in February of 2008 with Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony. Paula Robison’s historic recordings for Vanguard Classics are now being reissued. Ms. Robison has also recorded for Sony Classical, CBS Masterworks, Mode (the complete Berio Sequenzas, awarded the Premio del Disco Amadeus 2008, and Lei Liang's "In Praise of Shadows"), New World Records, King Records, Musical Heritage Society, and Bridge Recordings (her Marlboro Festival performance of Schubert’s Introduction and Variations with Rudolf Serkin, named American Record Guide's Best Recording of the Year). Her books on the art of flute playing are published by Universal Edition, Schott, European-American Music, and G. Schirmer. In 2006 Paula Robison founded Pergola Recordings, an independent label. Recently released, a critically acclaimed album of live performances including the World Premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s Sonata with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the Prokofiev Sonata with pianist Yefim Bronfman. One of Ms. Robison’s favorite continuing projects is "With Art": collaborations with visual artists in unusual spaces. In the fall of 2005, Ms. Robison--as Artist-in-Residence at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum--initiated “Variations on a Theme”, a collaborative project with conceptual artist Sol LeWitt and curator Pieranna Cavalchini. On view in the Special Exhibition Gallery was a site-specific wall drawing with daily performances at random hours of Mozart’s works for flute. In the Spring of 2006 she traveled to Jerusalem to create a new project with artist Jim Schantz and the Pucker Gallery of Boston. The result of this journey, a CD and book called “Places of the Spirit: The Holy Land” was released in April, 2008. Other "With Art" projects have included Luciano Berio’s “Sequenza I” with Italian Art from the 1950s at PS 1 in New York, Toru Takemitsu’s “Itinerant”, in memory of Isamu Noguchi, at the Noguchi Garden Museum, Impressionist music in the Renoir Gallery of the Clark Museum,"Dancing with Bach" and "Watteau and Music: Dance, Seduction, Allusion, Mystery" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and a battle with Tim Hawkinson’s "UberOrgan" at MASS MoCA. Although Ms Robison was thrown out of her high school drama club for breaking character and clowning in the middle of a gothic tragedy, through the years her love of theater never left her, especially Commedia dell’Arte and specifically Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire”. In 2007 she made a new English performance version of the “Pierrot” texts, using both the original Albert Giraud poems and Otto Erich Hartleben’s translations, and took the speaking part for two performances at the Barge in New York City. On December 31st 2009, in celebration of the full moon, the New Year, and a lunar project by Gardner Museum Artist-in-Residence Taro Shinoda, she was again the "Sprecherin" in a special midnight performance of Schoenberg’s expressionist masterpiece. In 2011 she will appear as narrator in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's performance of Sofia Gubaidalina's "Garten von Freuden und Traurigkeiten" . Paula Robison has taught at the Juilliard School and given classes all over the world. In the fall of 2005 she rejoined the faculty of The New England Conservatory as the first occupant of the newly-endowed Donna Hieken Flute Chair. She received an Honorary Doctorate from the San Francisco Conservatory in May of 2008 and gave the commencement address, and in November of 2008 she was honored by the Classical Recording Foundation with its annual Samuel Sanders Award at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall. In February-March of 2009 she visited the School of Music of the University of Washington as the Hans and Thelma Lehmann Distinguished Lecturer in Music.