Bill came to Raleigh in 2001 to study physics at NCSU, and earned a BS in 2004. He graduated with a PhD in May 2010, and promptly joined the physics faculty as a lecturer, teaching two courses online. He has constructed a novel plasma confinement experiment investigating ball lightning. He is active in the study and practice of yoga, Hinduism, Dances of Universal Peace, and mystical practices of many kinds, and is a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba. This strongly influences his music, most of which is devotional in nature even if not explicitly indicated.

His compositions include:

• woodwind, brass, string, viol, piano, and synthesizer quintets;
• a recorder and a string quartet;
• songs, sacred and satirical;
• Mantra Cantata and Strange Songs for soloists, chorus and orchestra;
• eleven sonatas for solo violin or viola;
• a piano sonata and a set of variations for piano or harpsichord;
• sonatas for cello, flute, and two for violin with piano accompaniment;
• a duet for violin and cello;
• a trio for violin, oboe and piano, another for clarinet, cello and piano, and another for soprano, violin and piano, another for mezzo-soprano, oboe, and piano, and yet another for violin, cello, and piano;
• two quartets for violin, clarinet, cello and piano;
• concertos for violin, piano, and string quartet with orchestra;
• a sextet for clarinet and strings;
• a work for two horns and strings;
• a symphony based on speeches by Martin Luther King;
• music for concert band;
• and three short works for orchestra.

Playing violin had to stop in 1981 due to arthritis. Despite a couple of attempts to start again, he is unable to perform and is limited to synthesis and submitting scores to other musicians. The music is intended for the general audience that goes to classical music concerts; it is not designed to be enjoyed only by new music specialists. Since 2006, Eric Pritchard has introduced the music to some of the best musicians in the Raleigh and Durham area, and concerts are starting to result. From 2010 to 2014 there were annual concerts of his music each February; this may resume in future years.

Bill has produced eleven CDs and DVDs independently. In 2011, Bill wrote the Autobillography which has all the details of his life. His website at billrobinsonmusic.com has all his scores and recordings, as well as his book in print and audio versions.

A note about the musicians on this recording:

Grand Serenade

• Fred Jacobowitz
• Bonnie Thron
• Thomas Warburton

Fred Jacobowitz received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with the late Leon Russianoff. He made his New York Debut at Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Hall) as winner of the Artists International Competition. He was a featured soloist on radio stations WBAI and WQXR in New York City, with the Goldman Band, and in recital throughout the Metropolitan New York area.

As a chamber musician, he has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival and played in the Verrazano Winds Woodwind Quintet in Brooklyn, New York. Mr. Jacobowitz was Principal Clarinetist in the Annapolis (Maryland) Symphony Orchestra from 1989-2002. He is equally at home in the worlds of Classical, Jazz and Folk, having performed and recorded with his Kol Haruach Klezmer Band (www.kolharuach.com) and his duo, Ebony and Ivory. He has performed as recitalist and soloist throughout the US and Canada and in Panama.

Mr. Jacobowitz now resides in Raleigh, NC, where (when not performing out of town) he teaches and freelances, and he can often be heard playing concerts with his wife, North Carolina Symphony Principal Cellist Bonnie Thron. He runs his own business, Case Closed (www.case-closed.us), fixing musical instrument cases and is a sometime Little League Baseball Umpire.

Bonnie Thron; Principal cellist of the North Carolina Symphony, Bonnie has been a concerto soloist with many orchestras in North Carolina, New England, Maryland and Panama. She has been a soloist and frequent collaborator with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra during their summer North Carolina residencies.

Bonnie plays with the Mallarmé Chamber Players and was involved in their latest CD release "Songs for the Soul" which consists of music by African American composers. Formerly a member of the Peabody Trio and the Denver Symphony, she also performed with the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble and Speculum Musicae in NYC. She has been a frequent guest artist with the Apple Hill Chamber Players in her home state of New Hampshire and participates every August in the Sebago Long Lake Music Festival in Harrison, Maine.

As well as degrees from the Juilliard School, Bonnie also has a BSN from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and worked for several years as a nurse in Baltimore.

Thomas Warburton, pianist, has lived and performed in the Triangle area since the fall of 1969. In 2005 he retired after 36 years on the music faculty of the University of North Carolina. He has performed in solo and collaborative recitals in a variety of venues, especially California, Michigan, Ohio, and New York. He has been associated with the Mallarmé Chamber Players since 1993 and appears on three of their recordings including a recent CD of TJ Anderson's Spirit Songs with Bonnie Thron.

He regularly substitutes as organist for churches in Durham and Chapel Hill. He has given first performances of music by a variety of American composers including TJ Anderson, William Albright, Sydney Hodkinson, and most recently Allen Anderson, who wrote "Some Ragged Spots" for him in 2009.

Ananda Sonata

• Eric Pritchard
• Thomas Warburton

Eric Pritchard violinist, has been a member of Ciompi Quartet since 1995 and was formerly the first violinist of the Alexander and Oxford Quartets. Mr. Pritchard has taught at Miami University, San Francisco State University, City University of New York and the North Carolina School of the Arts.

He was winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs Award in Violin as well as the first-prize winner at the Portsmouth (England) International String Quartet Competition and the Coleman and Fischoff national chamber music competitions. He has performed widely as a recitalist and as soloist with the Boston Pops and orchestras in Europe and South America. His major teachers were Eric Rosenblith, Josef Gingold, Ivan Galamian and Isadore Tinkleman and he holds degrees from Indiana University and the Juilliard School. He has performed many works by Bill Robinson since 2006.

Clarinet Sextet

• Fred Jacobowitz
• Nathan Leyand
• David Marschall
• Eric Pritchard
• Mary Kay Robinson
• Bonnie Thron

Nathan Leyand, cello, attended the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Nathaniael Rosen. Before moving to the Triangle, he was principal cellist of the Des Moines Symphony and member of the Pioneer String Quartet. Leyland has performed as soloist with symphony orchestras in Ohio, New York and Connecticut, and as recitalist and chamber musician in much of the United States. He is currently an active freelancer in North Carolina, performing with the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Mallarmé Chamber Players, the Carolina Ballet Orchestra among others.

David Marschall has been a member of the North Carolina Symphony since 1987. He was appointed Associate Principal Viola in 2007, and this season he is serving as Acting Principal Viola. Since 1990, he has spent his summers playing in the orchestra of the Santa Fe Opera. David is a member of the chamber ensemble Quercus, and he is a member of New Music Raleigh, an ensemble dedicated to the music of living composers. He performs regularly in the Peace College Chamber Music Series and with the Mallarmé Chamber Players.

David has also served as Principal Viola for the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra andw the Columbus Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra. He was a member of the New Orleans Symphony, the Innsbruck (Austria) Symphony, the Des Moines Metro Opera, and the Colorado Philharmonic.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, David studied first at Ohio State, and he received his Master's degree from the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Karen Tuttle. His viola was made in 2009 by Grubaugh and Seifert of California. David's wife, Amy, teaches German and English at Raleigh Charter High School, and they have two sons, Philip and Owen.

Mary Kay Robinson, violinist, is a 1968 graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with Dorothy DeLay and Ivan Galamian. She studied chamber music with Felix Galimir, Donald Weilerstein, Josef Gingold and members of the Guarneri String Quartet. She furthered her education with studies with Glenn Dicterow, Gregory Fulkerson and Gerald Beal. Her first job after graduation was as violin instructor at the University of Tennessee, in her hometown of Knoxville, where she filled in for her former teacher, William Starr, who was on sabbatical in Japan. She was a member of the University of Tennessee String Quartet and later held a similar position in the University of Maryland String Quartet.

Mary Kay was member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from 1969 to 1973, where she also participated in many chamber music concerts with her orchestra colleagues. Later she joined the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and substituted for many years with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. She has played chamber music with many illustrious musicians including Paul Neubauer, Kerry McDermott, Muneko Otani, Dan Foster, Yehonatan Berrick, Fred Sherry, Steve Balderston, and Peter Lloyd, Andres Cardenes, and David Harding.

She has toured with Solisti New York and spent many summers playing with the OK Mozart Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, and Bellingham Festival of Music. All the while she has maintained an active private teaching studio and worked on the ground floor of a joint project with the NJ Symphony and the Newark city schools, bringing string teaching to second, third and fourth graders. She helped develop the NJ Symphony's Outreach program, which today carries music to people all over the state of NJ from hospitals and nursing homes to museums, libraries and schools. In 2008 she taught at Duke University as well as maintaining a private studio. Also that year, she performed Bill Robinson's Sonata for Solo Violin #4 at Brevard, NC.

Third Annual Concert of Music