March 28th – April 1st
The Symposium offers lecture concerts, master classes and concerts, all of which are free and open to the public.
Evening concerts Monday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., plus master classes and lecture concerts during the day.
Featured composers include: John Luther Adams, Louis Ballard, Curt Cacioppo, Raven Chacon, Michael Daugherty, Kyle Gann, Peter Gilbert, José-Luis Hurtado, Valerie Naranjo, Karola Obermüller, Trevor Reed,John Donald Robb, Christopher Shultis, and Falko Steinbach.
Featured artists: Amernet Quartet and Emanuele Arciuli.
2016 Symposium Concert Schedule 14-Mar-2016 (71 KB)
2016 Symposium Daytime Schedule 14-Mar-2016 (70 KB)
The Trust promotes the exploration of new music through the UNM John Donald Robb Composers’ Symposium, which takes place every spring on the UNM campus. Since 1972, the internationally renowned symposium has brought composers and musicians from around the world to UNM for a series of public concerts and unique learning opportunities for UNM students. Past guest composers have included such luminaries as John Cage, Lukas Foss, Michael Colgrass, Anthony Braxton and Gordon Mumma.
Every other year, the Trust sponsors the UNM John Donald Robb Commission Competition. The winner receives a cash prize and the opportunity to have his/her composition performed during the Composers’ Symposium. The 2016 Commission Competition awardee will be announced in March.
The UNM Robb Musical Trust serves as a bridge between the UNM College of Fine Arts and the New Mexico community, regularly presenting concerts of Robb’s compositions along with Hispanic folk songs, preserving and promoting the archive of 3,000 field recordings Robb made, and collaborating with community partners in educational initiatives. Through its many activities, the Trust proudly carries on the vision of its namesake, John Donald Robb.
Dr. José Luis Hurtado awarded prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship
Composer and pianist José Luis Hurtado, an associate professor in The University of New Mexico’s Department of Music in the College of Fine Arts, is one of the 2020 winners of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.
You Can’t Tell It Like I Can: Black Women, Music, and the Struggle for Social Justice in America
This lecture/performance explores how black women have used music as a method of shaping the public rhetoric and sentiment surrounding the black civil rights struggle in America. Through a historical framework that moves through the height of the abolitionist movement, the Popular front during the 1930s and 1940s, the frontlines of the direct action campaigns of the 1960s, and the proliferation of the Black Power movement in the 1970s.
An Americanish Songbook: Linda Ronstadt’s “other” Country
This talk will consider performances and recordings by singer Linda Ronstadt to propose what I refer to as her Americanish musical songbook. The suffix “ish” here intends to accentuate the “somewhat” or “to some extent” of “American” that Ronstadt—Tucson born and raised—lived and sonically imagined through her extraordinary musical career.