“A wonderful guy who brings music alive!” For more than a decade, Rob Kapilow has brought the joy and wonder of classical music – and unraveled some of its mysteries – to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Characterized by his unique ability to create an “aha” moment for his audiences and collaborators, whatever their level of musical sophistication or naiveté, Kapilow’s work brings music into people’s lives: opening new ears to musical experiences and helping people to listen actively rather than just hear. 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. Rob Kapilow is awfully good at what he does. We need him.” Kapilow’s range of activities is astonishingly broad, including his What Makes It Great?© presentations (now in their eleventh seasons in New York and Boston), his family compositions and FamilyMusik© events, and his “Citypieces”. The reach of his interactive events and activities is wide, both geographically and culturally: from Native American tribal communities in Montana and inner-city high school students in Louisiana to wine-tasters in the Napa Valley, and from tots barely out of diapers to musicologists long out of Ivy League programs, his audiences are diverse and unexpected, but invariably rapt and keen to come back for more. Kapilow’s popularity and appeal are reflected in notable recent invitations: to appear on NBC’s Today Show in conversation with Katie Couric; to present a special What Makes It Great?© event for broadcast on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center in January 2008; and to write a book to be published by the new alliance between Wiley and Lincoln Center during the 2008-09 season. What Makes It Great?©
Kapilow’s What Makes It Great?© (WMIG) made its auspicious debut on NPR’s Performance Today more than a decade ago, and with its accessible ten-minute format it quickly attracted a wide base of fans and followers. Snowballing in popularity, it developed into a full-length concert evening and was soon snapped up by presenters looking to build new audiences. What Makes It Great?© now sells out regular subscription series in Kansas City (13th season) and Cerritos, CA (tenth season), as well as at New York’s Lincoln Center and Boston’s Celebrity Series, both in their eleventh seasons. On January 10, 2008, PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center will broadcast a special What Makes It Great?© show, bringing it to TV screens throughout the US; worldwide audiences will be able to see and experience Kapilow’s trademarked presentations when Lincoln Center inaugurates a series of WMIG video podcasts in October. In November, Chicago audiences will get a chance to experience WMIG first-hand – and on the radio – when Kapilow joins the Pacifica Quartet at its Beethoven Festival and the proceedings will be broadcast by WFMT. WPAS will introduce WMIG to Washington audiences in the spring of 2008. Kapilow’s interactive presentations take form in a range of musical genres – from Chopin piano études and Bach choral masses to Gershwin song standards. In 2005, Kapilow introduced a series of WMIG events, designed especially for teenagers, to thousands of middle- and high-school children in collaboration with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. At the end of 2002, Kapilow’s Bernstein “Songbook” event at the Lincoln Center was selected as one of the New York Times’s “Top Ten Moments” of 2002’s theater offerings. Rob Kapilow’s What Makes It Great?© programs are available on CD, on the Vanguard Everyman Classics label. In discs devoted to Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusic and the “Jupiter” Symphony, Kapilow breaks the music down in a listener-friendly way – pulling themes apart, demonstrating how the tunes might sound in lesser hands, guiding listeners through the maze of melodies – and then finishes up with a complete performance of the work. FamilyMusik©
Rob Kapilow, affectionately nicknamed America’s “pied piper of classical music,” has found many new young fans through his family compositions and presentations. Kapilow’s new piece for families, his Tap Dance Concerto, was jointly commissioned by the New York’s Lincoln Center, the Celebrity Series of Boston, and Vancouver’s Music in the Morning; this colorful collaboration with dancer Ayodele Casel was premiered in those three cities last season. Kapilow has written numerous commissioned works, including the first musical setting of a Dr. Seuss work, Green Eggs and Ham. Kapilow’s inimitable presentation “Green Eggs and Hamadeus”, which features his own work alongside Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in a lively mix of discussion and performance, is now available on CD on the Artemis Classics label. Detroit audiences will see Rob Kapilow for the first time in March 2008 when he presents “Green Eggs and Hamadeus” with the Detroit Symphony. And the following month, Cerritos audiences, long familiar with Kapilow’s What Makes It Great?© shows, will also get a taste of his FamilyMusik© fare when he presents “Green Eggs and Hamadeus” there. 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. Other compositions include Dr. Seuss’s Gertrude McFuzz; a Christmas-Hanukkah pair of pieces (Chris Van Allsburg’s Polar Express, for the Boston Celebrity Series, and Elijah’s Angel, a setting of the children’s book by Michael Rosen); and Kapilow’s 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 “Casey at the Bat”, which was performed as part of Lincoln Center’s FamilyMusik© series in March 2007. Great Performers of Lincoln Center introduced a new series of Kapilow’s FamilyMusik© programs during the 2004-05 season (marking the first family music series at the prestigious venue). Kapilow also presents an annual FamilyMusik© series in Boston (his twelfth season there begins in November) and in Vancouver, and he will introduce family music to numerous Toronto youngsters in February when he collaborates with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra – in ten concerts – presenting his inimitable animal-themed program, “And Furthermore, They Bite!”. “Citypieces” and Commemorative Compositions 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. His most recent such project examined and reflected on the historic impact of the Lewis and Clark expedition (commemorating its bicentennial) from the perspective of the Native American Indian. 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, Summer Sun, Winter Moon, received its premiere performances in the fall and winter of 2004. Kapilow invited Darrell Kipp, a writer and educator from the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana, to collaborate as librettist. A documentary film, Summer Sun, Winter Moon, following the process of the composition from conception through to its premiere, is being produced for broadcast on public television in fall 2008/spring 2009. Independent filmmaker Hugo Perez is producing and directing the documentary for New York-based illume productions; the documentary has recently received the prestigious and competitive honor of completion funds from the Independent Television Service (ITVS) arm of PBS. 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 format in a state-wide project commissioned by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and the State of Louisiana, as part of the 2003 celebrations for the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase. The work was toured throughout the state of Louisiana. Kapilow has conducted many new works of musical theater, ranging from the Tony Award-winning Nine on Broadway to the premiere of Frida for the opening of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s “Next Wave Festival” and premieres of works for the American Repertory Theater. He is the conductor/creative director of FamilyMusik© for the Boston Celebrity Series and at New York’s Lincoln Center, 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, Music Director of the touring company Opera New England, and conductor of the Kansas City Symphony’s summer FamilyFare program. He was also music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra for five seasons At the age of 19, Kapilow interrupted his academic work at Yale University to study with the legendary Nadia Boulanger. Two years later, after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, he continued his studies at the Eastman School of Music. After graduating from Eastman, he returned to Yale, where he was assistant professor for six years 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. He was the first composer ever to be granted the rights to set Dr. Seuss’s words to music, and his music is published exclusively by G. Schirmer. Kapilow lives in River Vale, NJ, with his wife and three children. August 2007 |
