User:Robert J Rosen

Composer Robert J. Rosen has been a voice within the contemporary music scene in Canada for over thirty years. His concert works have been performed and broadcast around the world* by such artists as flutists Robert Aitken and Patrick Gallois, cellist Shauna Rolston, trumpeter Jens Lindemann, clarinetists Alan Hacker and James Campbell, pianist Barbara Pritchard, percussionist Jean-Pierre Drouet and Trio Phoenix. His works have been broadcast on CBC Radio, Deutsche Rundfunk, the BBC, Swedish, and Australian international networks, and many public broadcast stations in North America.

Rosen composes for a variety of performance media, including orchestral and chamber music, environmental performance work, electroacoustics, film and contemporary dance. His music has been performed in spectacular natural environments, including the Grand Canyon in the United States, Grotto Canyon in the heart of the Canadian Rockies and on Signal Hill in Newfoundland. As a creative artist he regularly collaborates on many different types of projects with playwrights, poets, choreographers and film producers. An experimental film which features his film score was awarded prizes and screened at major film festivals throughout Europe, the Americas and parts of Asia**.

As a performer and composer Rosen has worked with and conducted performances for many of the past century’s greatest composers, including John Cage, Morton Feldman, Witold Lutoslawski, Iannis Xenakis, Elliott Carter, George Crumb and R. Murray Schafer. His early studies included work with Violet Archer, Malcolm Forsyth and Bruce Mather.

Rosen has also influenced new generations of musicians and artists from around the world through his work with various musical organizations and institutions. He has worked in the foundation of important composer organizations in Canada, produced recordings, has been the featured composer at symposia and festivals in Toronto, Mexico, Montreal, Edmonton, Banff, Taiwan and Vancouver. During his years of association with the internationally renowned Banff Centre for the Arts, he assisted hundreds of professional artists with their career pursuits, in various disciplines. He left his role as Associate Director of Music and Sound at the Banff Centre, in 1995, to join the of the Academy Program at Mount Royal College Conservatory in Calgary.

Rosen has also been the Music Director for Kokoro Dance, a dynamic contemporary company based in Vancouver, Canada. He has served on the boards of directors and advisory committees for such organizations as The Canada Council and The Canadian Music Centre. In addition to his creative work, he was on faculty at Mount Royal College Conservatory in Calgary giving instruction in composition, music history, and theory from 1995 to 2009. He is now an instructor at Alberta College Conservatory in Edmonton.

Recordings of Rosen’s music are available on the following labels: Centredisc, Hornblower, Arktos, Clef, the CMC, and Banff Centre Recordings.


 * Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada (from Victoria to St. John’s), France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States (including New York, Chicago, Houston and Seattle.)


 * Award-winning films for which Rosen created original scores have been screened at many prestigious film festivals in places including Argentina, Banff, Berlin, Brisbane, Chicago, Montreal, Taiwan, Toronto, and Uruguay.