Hilary Robinson
Composer and Music Educator in London, United Kingdom
Welcome. I'm a classically-trained musician and music educator living in London. (Scroll down for a detailed biography.) Here's a selection of my music as a composer, performer, arranger or a combination of those.
LINKS: recent recordings and concerts
As a music teacher, I specialise in adult students and have long experience of teaching adults and curriculum design for adult music learners in London adult education colleges.
TO LISTEN TO:
On CD & digital platforms, a classical ukulele commission for the late Donald Bousted.
My piano duet version of a Finnish tango song.
A live recording of Jonathan Powell playing 10.10.10 in Oxford – Jonathan has also performed it at other places including Spectrum in New York, and Columbia College in Chicago.
A collaboration with electronic music artist Jo Johnson, Antenna Echoes. New LP out now on 9128.live label.
A sonic advent calendar, Sounds for Shrinking Days.
A short piano piece I'm playing on Bandcamp.
A track from my old band project, Ferry Island.
As a vocalist, I have worked with Keith Johnson on a variety of songs. He uses my voice/voices in his version of the Gershwin classic But Not For Me here.
And here, I’m on backing vocals on his Helpless/March to the Scaffold.
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BIOGRAPHY:
I studied contemporary classical music composition with teachers including Kaija Saariaho, Anders Eliasson and Geoff Poole, and I hold a postgraduate degree (with distinction) in composition. Moving to Finland in the early 90s for further composition and piano studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki on a Finnish government scholarship, I lived there for a decade. Since returning to the UK, I've been based in London.
My music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Resonance FM and Curved Radio (Australia), and performed in Europe, the US and the UK at festivals including London’s Music We’d Like to Hear, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and the former British Music Information Centre’s Cutting Edge series. I have worked with musicians on both sides of the Atlantic, ensembles such as the Fidelio Trio and Ensemble Noszferatu, and pianists including Jonathan Powell, Mary Dullea, Mark Knoop and Waka Hasegawa. In recent years my music has absorbed elements of jazz and pop as I've become more active as a performer in different musical contexts. Some of my scores are held in the British Music Collection or self-published; Februa for ukulele is published by Donald Bousted Edition.