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Robert Kyr
(541) 346-3766
rkyr@uoregon.edu

Robert Kyr is professor of composition and theory and has been on the UO music faculty since 1990. He is chair of the composition department, and director of the renowned Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium (www.iwagemusic.com), as well as the Music Today Festival, a biennial series of concerts and events that celebrate new music from around the world. He also directs the innovative Vanguard Concert & Workshop Series, and the UO’s Pacific Rim Gamelan.

Kyr graduated from Yale summa cum laude in 1974 and continued his education in England at the Royal College of Music in London, and at Dartington Summer School for the Arts, where he studied with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Kyr completed his Master of Arts at the University of Pennsylvania in 1978, studying with George Rochberg and George Crumb. He was elected to the Society of Fellows at Harvard University in 1978 and was in residence as a Junior Fellow from 1978–81.

In 1989, Kyr received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he studied with Donald Martino and Earl Kim. He has held teaching positions in composition and theory at Yale University, UCLA, Hartt School o f Music, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Aspen Music School, and the Longy School of Music in Massachusetts, where he was director of compositional studies. At Oregon, Kyr has developed new models for teaching composition, integrating theory, performance practice, and composition into a single, focused curriculum at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The composition program at Oregon is presently one of the largest in the United States—a thriving community of 50 composers.

Kyr has composed nine symphonies, three chamber symphonies, three violin concerti, and numerous works for vocal ensembles of all types. His ninth symphony—The Spirit of Time for four soloists, chorus and orchestra—was performed as part of an international project titled “Waging Peace in the New Millennium,” which he directed through the Carlton Savage Endowment for International Relations and Peace at the University of Oregon. Through this program, he created an international initiative for the composition of choral music in 2002, offering composers of all ages an opportunity to create new music on peace-related texts. From 2000–04, Kyr was composer-in-residence with the Oregon Repertory Singers, for which he created four large-scale works that have been recorded and will be released on CD.

Kyr has received commissions from Chanticleer, San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Yale Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Eugene Symphony, New England Philharmonic, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Cappella Nova (Scotland), Revalia (Estonia), Ensemble Project Ars Nova, Oregon Repertory Singers, Back Bay Chorale (Boston), Third Angle (Portland), California EAR Unit (L.A.), New England Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, among others. His commissions have received funding through many organizations and foundations, including Meet the Composer, Paul Allen Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Scottish Arts Council, Canada Council, Chamber Music America, Oregon Regional Arts and Culture Council, Schnitzer Care Foundation, Telarc International, Chase Foundation, Hopkins Arts Center (Dartmouth), and Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities.

CDs of Kyr’s music currently available include: Unseen Rain (New Albion NA 075), The Passion according to Four Evangelists (New Albion NA 098), Celestial Light: Music by Hildegard von Bingen and Robert Kyr (Telarc CD 80456), and The Fourth River: The Millennium Revealed (Telarc CD 80534). His three violin concerti will be released on New Albion (NA 126) in fall 2005.