About Performance Today

Commentator Robert Kapilow

With his diverse array of talents and his infectious enthusiasm for all things musical, Robert Kapilow has been compared to the great Leonard Bernstein for bringing the pleasures of classical music to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. As The Boston Globe said, "It's a cheering thought that this kind of missionary enterprise did not pass from this earth with Leonard Bernstein. Robert Kapilow is awfully good at what he does. We need him."

What characterizes all of Kapilow's work is his ability to create an "aha" moment for his audiences and collaborators, and his dedication to the idea of bringing music into people's lives: opening new ears to musical experiences and helping people to understand how music can enrich, reflect and enhance their daily lives, regardless of who they are or how much exposure to -- or understanding of -- music they already have.

Kapilow's range of activities is astonishingly broad, including his "What Makes It Great?" presentations, his family compositions and presentations, and his "Citypieces." Whether it's a five-year-old child discovering the joy of rhythm while clapping and stomping his way through a family show, an amateur musician hoping to learn more about Bach's use of the fugue in a "What Makes It Great?" presentation, a subscriber to a concert series who enjoys the music but has never really understood why, or a senior citizen reflecting on the meaning of a song or melody in one of Kapilow's "Citypiece" workshops, each member of Kapilow's audience or group of participants has a unique but shared experience: a lightbulb is lit in his or her musical consciousness.

Kapilow's regular outings on national radio (including spots on WNYC-FM's The Next Big Thing and on NPR's Performance Today) and acclaim for his work extend far beyond traditional classical music outlets into the realms of showbusiness, family, financial, local and mainstream media, reflecting his wide-reaching impact and accessibility.

"If you think you don't like classical music, you haven't met Robert Kapilow. And if you think that even the Pied Piper couldn't make you love chamber music, think again… Not since the late Leonard Bernstein did his Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic has classical music had a combination salesman-teacher as irresistible as Kapilow…He's as lively as a top-flight sports announcer and as entertaining as a stand-up comedian. But he's also got substance in spades.
-- The Kansas City Star

What Makes It Great?

"This was a knockout combination of education and entertainment... Hearing each song after Kapilow revealed its musical secrets was like meeting a celebrity just after reading his or her autobiography. Throughout the show Kapilow never once sounded dry or academic -- but he did sound smart, enthusiastic, and stunningly articulate. He has a remarkable ability to make genius understandable to a general audience.
-- Theatermania.com

Traveling the country enlightening audiences about classical music, Kapilow is well known for his acclaimed program "What Makes It Great?" Gaining recognition initially through regular 10-minute installments on NPR, which were then expanded into full-length concert evenings and series throughout North America, Kapilow's interactive presentation has lured thousands of new listeners to the concert hall.

The series has become a recurring event at New York's Lincoln Center (where Kapilow has the distinction of being the only artist to have his own series) and in Boston, Los Angeles and Kansas City. At the end of 2002, Kapilow's Bernstein 'Songbook' event at Lincoln Center was selected as one of the New York Times's "Top Ten Moments" of 2002's theater offerings.

Family Music

"Kapilow has cornered the market in quality music addressed to children and their families, and within just a couple of years he has become a very hot commodity, one of America's most performed and sought-after composers."
- The Boston Globe

Sometimes dubbed the 'pied piper of classical music', Kapilow has found many new young fans through his family compositions and presentations. Kapilow has written numerous commissioned works, including the first musical setting of a Dr. Seuss work, Green Eggs and Ham.

In August 2003, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival presented Kapilow's colorful and engaging event "Green Eggs and Hamadeus," with this Seuss work as its centerpiece, marking the first time that the 37-year-old festival had presented a family show.

Following on the heels of this success, Mostly Mozart will present another family show this summer, featuring Kapilow's And Furthermore They Bite, a companion piece to Carnival of the Animals; and Great Performers of Lincoln Center boasts a series of Kapilow's Family Musik programs during the 2004-5 season.

The Seuss work has achieved great popularity in the theater world, prompting Boston Globe music critic Richard Dyer to name it the most popular children's piece since Peter and the Wolf. Kapilow has also composed Dr. Seuss's Gertrude McFuzz; orchestral versions of both Seuss pieces (for the Minnesota Orchestra); a Christmas-Hannukah pair of pieces (Chris Van Allsburg's Polar Express, for the FleetBoston Celebrity Series in Boston where Kapilow runs the Family Musik series, and Elijah's Angel, a setting of the celebrated children's book by Michael Rosen); and his first opera, Many Moons, based on the James Thurber story, with a libretto by Hilary Blecher. Another popular family piece by Kapilow is Play Ball!, a setting of the famous poem "Casey at the Bat." April 2005 will see the premiere of his new symphonic version of the work, commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

"Citypieces" and Commemorative Compositions

"Rob Kapilow's unbridled enthusiasm for his project comes through in every ebullient word. His beautiful music relays the story of the Louisiana Purchase in a very unique way. I found the mixing of this important American history lesson with music and poetic quotations to be an amazing amalgam. No history professor could have made the Louisiana Purchase more relevant than Rob Kapilow did at that moment."
- An NPR "driveway moment", descibing Kapilow's piece commemorating the Louisiana Purchase bicentennial

Involving large communities in the inspiration and compositional process of his commemorative works, Kapilow has left a profound mark on the nation's cities and regions. After receiving great acclaim for "Citypiece: DC Monuments" (a millennium composition commissioned by the Kreeger Museum for the Kennedy Center and the National Symphony Orchestra), Kapilow reprised his interactive compositional style -- in a state-wide project -- in a commission for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and the State of Louisiana, as part of the 2003 celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. The work was toured throughout the state of Louisiana last spring.

Kapilow's current project exames and reflects on the historic impact of the expedition of Lewis and Clark from the unusual and poignant perspective of the Native American. Co-commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony, the Carlsen Center (on behalf of the Kansas City Symphony), and the Louisiana Philharmonic, the large choral/orchestral work, titled "Summer Sun Winter Moon," will receive its premiere performances in the cities of its three commissioning orchestras in the fall and winter of 2004, beginning with the world premiere performance in Kansas City in September.

Kapilow has invited Darrell Kipp, a writer and educator from the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana, to collaborate with him by writing a libretto that examines the expedition and its impact through the eyes of the tribes visited by Lewis and Clark. Through the unconventional collaboration between a Native American and a composer of European heritage, Kipp and Kapilow hope to reflect on this quintessentially American story from a new, multi-cultural perspective, and to create a work that grows out of their personal experiences attempting to "cross the divide" that separates mainstream America from Native America.

Kapilow has conducted the premieres of many new works of musical theater, ranging from Frida for the opening of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's "Next Wave Festival" and the American Repertory Theater, to the Tony Award-winning Nine on Broadway.

Among his other engagements as a conductor are performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Symphonies of Atlanta, Milwaukee, Toronto, Indianapolis, New Jersey Symphony and North Carolina as well as the St. Paul and Los Angeles chamber orchestras.

He is the conductor/creative director for FamilyMusik for the FleetBoston Celebrity Series, and has been conductor/director of FamilyMusik for New York's 92nd Street Y, co-director of the Rutgers SummerFest Festival, assistant conductor of the Opera Company of Boston, conductor of the Kansas City Symphony's summer FamilyFare program, and he was music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra for six seasons. Kapilow begins a new series of family music programs at Vancouver's Chan Center -- their first foray into family programming -- as part of its "Music in the Morning" series during the 2004-05 season.

At the age of 19, Kapilow interrupted his academic work at Yale University to study with famed composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. Two years later, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, after which he continued to study at the Eastman School of Music at Rochester University. After graduating from Eastman, he quickly returned to Yale, where he was music director and lecturer for five seasons at the university.

Kapilow's career has been marked by numerous major awards and grants. He won first place in the Fontainebleau Casadesus Piano Competition and was the second-place winner of the Antal Dorati Conductor's Competition with the Detroit Symphony. Kapilow was a featured composer on Chicago Public Radio's prestigious "Composers In America" series and is a recipient of an Exxon "Meet-the-Composer" grant and numerous ASCAP awards. His music is published exclusively by G. Schirmer.

Kapilow lives in River Vale, N.J., with his wife and three children, Benjamin, Sarah and Adam.

April 2004