In the first week of 2023 the NY Times picked the paperback edition as one of the "6 New Paperbacks to Read this Week" (see below) and on the 2nd page gave a brief but terrific short review (also below)
 NYTimes review2023
 
 

2020-2021 Update

As COVID-19 hit and the music world largely shifted to the virtual arena, I recorded a new, three-part, socially-distanced series of “What Makes it Great?” programs entitled “Beethoven, the Pandemic and the Power of Connection” filmed in New York City’s Merkin Hall with the Kaufman Music Center. 

I also created

  • Livestream programs for the Caramoor Festival as well as Stanford Live;
  • Virtual lectures for groups ranging from CEOs in Istanbul and Dubai, to
    therapists at the Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference;
  • Virtual book-club events for the Celebrity Series of Boston;

and taught a 7-week online course, “Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim” for the Thurnauer School of Music of the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades. I then reworked the course for Kaufman Music Center in New York and added a new, live-streamed program on the music of Stephen Sondheim.

A summer 2020 highlight

was a collaboration with the innovative dance group Pilobolus. I helped curate their remarkable, live, car-safari-experience-in-the woods for their Five Senses Festival in Washington Connecticut. In addition to performing in the event, I composed a new choral work based on a Rumi text sung live and socially distanced by the Litchfield County Choral Union. 

While composing the Rumi choral work, I also worked intensively on a new orchestral/choral work based on inter-generational immigrant stories called We Came to America. I previewed parts of the work on a special 2-hour evening on WWFM radio while also analyzing music ranging from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow.”

Current Projects

"We Came To America"

Facebook page

I will conduct the premiere of my "We Came to America" piece for chorus and orchestra with the New Jersey Symphony January 20, 2024 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

We Came to America is a new, large-scale choral/orchestral composition piece commissioned by the Thurnauer School based on inter-generational immigrant stories. 

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In June 2020, I signed a new two-book contract with Norton/Liveright, and I am presently hard at work doing research for the first book on the music of the Woodstock Generation.

 

Pilobolus’s car-safari-experience

I am helping to curate a new iteration of Pilobolus’s car-safari-experience for this coming summer (2021).

Rob Kapilow is the :

Artistic Partner

for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for the 2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024 seasons and

Artist-in-Residence

for the JCC-Thurnauer School of Music 2021-2024.

"Listening for America"
came out as both an audiobook and a paperback.

See it on Amazon

The reviews are terrific!

 

In 2019, Listening for America was named a finalist for the Marfield prize.
The Marfield Prize is a major award given to an "outstanding work of non-fiction on the literary, visual, media, or performing arts."

Read reviews here

Order now on Amazon


August 4th, 2019

Here's a great article on the premiere of my most recent octet, Aprés Maman, which happened on Sunday, August 4th, at Ottawa Chamberfest.