Well.......what can you say about these musician types????

Apparently you are nothing if your website is not TOGETHER MAN!!!

Well.....I guess I am..............

So many of my illustrious colleagues have beautiful and up to date websites. There are plans that will come to fruition in the early part of 2009 to combine the sites. This website has been somewhat correctly accused of being a bit corporate in tone (ed: thanks Rob - love ya) and though the robmathesmusic.com site is hipper in design, having been done 10 years later, it is all about Evening Train which is now 5 years old (still the one record one would need to know to know me though). There is no longer an open gallery page and I only wrote about 5 or 6 blogs in the last 6 or 7 years on that site. There is a more recent blog about Panic At The Disco and Radiohead and others that is passionate and somewhat worth reading though. Scope it out. I was actually scheduled to work with a fairly famous and gifted singer recently and she looked at this website and chose another arranger. Is that hilarious or what???? It wasn't a musical decision I was told but rather a "FONT" aversion I guess. I supposed I asked for it :0(

Chris Botti is an old friend who has a remarkable band. His guitarist Mark Whitfield and his drummer Billy Kilson are ridiculously gifted and yet their websites are also in dire need of design and information help. I am comforted that I am NOT ALONE!!

OK....what have I been doing with my life????

Over the last two years the most important projects have been Panic At The Disco's second record Pretty. Odd. which I produced, scoring the Polish Brothers films Astronaut Farmer and the upcoming Manure both featuring Billy Bob Thornton and with Stuart Matthewman of Sade and Maxwell fame, my first major original instrumental commission for a major orchestra and my record Orchestral Songs, not the promised Evening Train sequel but a collection of occasionally artsy but heartfelt songs for Voice and Orchestra. There are a number of tunes with band on OS and indeed true grooves on there but a lot of it will seem like a departure.

Panic's record consumed about five months of my life in late 2007 and early 2008 and was the most fun I have ever had in the recording studio. It got rave reviews and I am hoping to do the next one. If I don't, having done that one was enough joy for a lifetime. For those who were skeptical of the band after their first record, I highly recommend P.O. as an incredibly musical work by a band of smart and gifted writers that keep getting better.

I have continued to arrange for people and produce other tracks. I arranged a few tracks for Grace Potter and The Nocturnals, Butch Walker again---a long term collaborator who has just released a magnificent record--- Sycamore Meadows after his house was destroyed in the California fires---, Blake, and Secondhand Serenade.

Concord Records is releasing a new Vanessa Williams record to capitalize on the big success of Ugly Betty. I produced three Latin inflected tracks for it, all recorded with musicians from Mark Anthony's band including legendary Latin Percussionist Luisito Quintero and the great keyboardist Ricky Gonzales . I produced a record "In Color" for Michael Cavanaugh, who was discovered by Billy Joel and starred in the Twyla Tharp musical Movin' Out on Broadway. A very gifted straight down the middle Rock/Pop singer from Cleveland, we recorded some of it at my home away from home Abbey Road and there is some strong stuff on there, especially Michael's take on a few Joel songs and his insane boogie woogie piano playing on the Joe Turner classic "Roll 'Em Pete". A number of years ago Melissa Errico , who has starred in a number of Broadway shows, asked me to produce something for her after seeing me musically direct the Bono tribute Grammy week a few years ago. I produced her "Lullabies and Wildflowers" on Velour.

Meeting Stuart Matthewman was true serendipity. A great vibe creator who was the master behind so much of Sade's music and that incredible Maxwell debut record "Urban Hang Suite ". Stuart is great at melody and track creation but does not orchestrate or arrange and he himself would say he is harmonically challenged when working in the Classical or Jazz idiom though his ear is ridiculous. On both the films I was encouraged and allowed to use some of Stuart's themes and compose much of the score for the orchestra and on the new film, a mini Big Band.

"Manure" the new film (hilarious with Tea Leoni and Billy Bob) has a soundtrack which is like Dragnet meets Quincy Jones meets Oliver Nelson. A true hoot to record and another reunion with Joe Bonadio, the drummer and percussionist on all the early Christmas stuff including William The Angel.

I have continued to musically direct The Songwriter's Hall of Fame and the Kennedy Center Honors which are both highlights of the year every year. Epic Records called to have me quickly arrange a few tracks for the winner of the America's Got Talent show Neil E Boyd. Neil is a big kid from St. Louis with a huge voice. We did it in two long days.

Though no reinvention of any wheel, just basically straight up but musical versions of holiday classics, he is performing at the NBC Tree Lighting and it was a few days of bliss recording with my favorite New York string section on one of the last working days at Legacy Studios A 509, the last great room for orchestral recording in New York which closed November 30th. A sign of the times and another subject entirely.

MOST IMPORTANTLY:

The two things I end with are the two things closest to my heart right now. I composed a piece for the Nashville Symphony and Leonard Slatkin that will be premiered February 5th in Nashville. The other piece on the program is Brahms First Piano Concerto with Emanuel Ax (NO PRESSURE THERE!!!!). Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony won the Grammy for Best Classical Album in 2007 so besides the pressure to do something strong anyway, I wanted to write something completely unified and not at all some kind of crossover piece written by a supposed "arranger of pop music". Some of the songs on Orchestral Songs like "When You Are Old", "Embroidered Cloths" and "The Rose, The Lily, The Sun, and The Dove" point the way for this piece.

Those who know me well know that since I was in my early 20's I have not left my home without a box of Stravinsky, Mahler and Britten under my arm. I also studied intensely with composer Myron Fink at SUNY Purchase and Hunter College. I know what I am doing and indeed feel I have a sound of my own if I am allowed to say that, though critics will note I come from the tradition of many others, influenced by American masters such as Bernstein & Corigliano & Copland & Barber plus mid Period Stravinsky & even Sondheim.

These men created bodies of work which create ridiculous and impossible standards I will surely not live up to but they are what I grew up on nevertheless. I did my best but what was supposed to take me 30 days took 53 days and consumed me. It is a very tonal and open piece of music and its title is A Standing Ground: Concertino for Orchestra (after Poems of Wendell Berry). I will put the program note at the bottom of this update. My hope is that it is a worthy 15 to 20 minutes of time spent listening to music. I don't claim anything other than it is the best I have to offer.

The other thing is the completion of rhythm tracks on the much awaited (by friends and fans locally and the guys in the band like Will Lee, Billy Masters and Shawn Pelton) Wheelbarrow, Evening Train's sequel.

This is music of some intensity and even occasional ferocity on tracks like "Chilly Water" and the blues "Wheelbarrow". It is deeper in the direction of the songs "Evening Train" and " Although It Is The Night" and the thing that distinguishes it for me is that it is not remotely safe in approach. Because my writing has a spiritual undertone too often associated with some kind of conservatism or contemporary Christian music, people who don't really listen closely assume the music is a bit staid and too pat, even over produced.

Evening Train was supposed to be my RECORD!!!-------- my personal Achtung Baby or Peter Gabriel's Us. I wanted it to be cinematic, arranged, involving Horn Sections and Strings, showing off my life as an arranger and orchestrator and I wanted it to be a journey of some sonic quality and significance. It was mixed by the peerless Mick Guzauski who won the Grammy for mixing Eric Clapton last year. I am deeply proud of it BUT............

I recognize this is a time in music history, especially recording industry history, where immediacy is gone. Everything is processed, tuned to within an inch of its life, moved, prodded, corrected and manicured. When it is done by masters on big gleaming acts like Beyonce or John Mayer, it works and audio quality has never been clearer in a way. However, the kind of intensity that one gets from In Rainbows by Radiohead is all too rare.

It is time for vocals to be allowed to be NOT PERFECT. It is time for people to stop matching the bass drum to the bass or to move everything around for musical perfection or, better put, seeming musical perfection.

Wheelbarrow will be rawer and largely uncorrected, no tuning of vocals (though on Train there is no tuning on the lead vocals at all). Though there will be more of the meditative and softer side of what I do, it will seem like a more direct listening experience than Train does, more stripped down. Some will find it less impressive perhaps but from a writing and performance perspective, it is the best I have not unlike the Concertino.

I cannot finish it in this economy. I don't need the funds I had for Train, largely supported by the money I made working literally around the clock at the height of the music business when even Classical CD's occasionally went gold. BUT............. I do need funds to at least finish it well. I have not sung anything except live scratch vocals, no Guitar tracks, no keyboards, just Billy, Will and Shawn recorded and done. They played beautifully and sounded amazing. We played everything live and I wish I could keep my tracks but the recording realities did not allow that. I am sure I will save and have those funds within the next year or two. Best case scenario, WHEELBARROW will come out for Christmas 2009. Worst case....2010. It will not be overbaked in the slightest. I just have to spend the little time on it it needs. I will get it done and get it done right.

That is it. There have been other things going on but that is most of it. Come to the Christmas show if you can. Happy 2009.

APRIL 4TH, 1968---MARTIN LUTHER KING ASSASSINATED IN MEMPHIS, TN

NOVEMBER 4TH, 2008---THE ELECTION OF A BLACK AMERICAN PRESIDENT

 A DEEPLY INTELLIGENT AND CONSIDERED BLACK AMERICAN I MIGHT ADD.
WHATEVER YOUR POLITICAL PERSUASION, YOU MUST ADMIT.......
AMERICA IS ONE HECK OF A COUNTRY!!!!!! AMEN.

Rob's MUCH NEEDED UPDATE---LATE 2008---

Rob Mathes—A Standing Ground-Concertino For Orchestra:

(after Poems of Wendell Berry)

About 10 years ago I started regularly flying to Nashville from New York to write songs for a company in Brentwood. Many of my colleagues knew my work as an orchestrator and composer and I began to write arrangements for people like Tim McGraw, Randy Travis, and Wynonna Judd. The studio musicians became family and many of them played regularly with The Nashville Symphony. To be commissioned by that very orchestra now is an honor.

On one of my trips I found a book of poems by Wendell Berry called "A Timbered Choir" at Davis Kidd Booksellers on Hillsboro Rd. Berry has written essays on culture and novels but at the center of his work lie his poems. A farmer through and through, his is a kind of rural expression unique to America. It is not simple or quaint in the slightest though. Living beside paeans to family, the land, and character is a rigorous and often tough stance. It is this intensity that makes the work as strong as it is.

When the commission came through, I'd been reading his Collected Poems again. I decided to let the spirit of these poems get me started.
Instead of trying to match words to music, rather I let the poems nudge me in different directions.

Three things unify the work. One is a 12 tone row which, in its simplest form, is a series of pitches where each of the 12 Chromatic notes are used before one is repeated. Normally associated with atonal music and its master Arnold Schoenberg, in this piece it is used in a completely tonal manner. Wendell Berry has 12 letters in his name so I felt it appropriate and it got me going.

The second thing is the rhythm set up in the Bass Drum's first entrance. This shows us where we end up in the Toccata and its role resembles that of the Bodhran in Celtic music.

The last unifying element is a Hymn. Somewhat predictable for anyone writing American music, Wendell Berry regularly attends a Baptist church near his home in Kentucky and I thought it fitting not only musically but faithful to the spirit of the poems. The tune is called the Caithness Tune for a County in the Northeast of Scotland. It is used in a number of hymns including the better known "O For A Closer Walk With God".

The reason it caught my eye is because it is also the tune for the Hymn "The Earth and All That Dwell Within" which speaks to many of the themes in Berry's work. It is not heard in its original guise until the very end of the Toccata.

A brief Prelude sets up the tone row and after a taste of the aforementioned Bass Drum we are into the Pastoral movement. It is straight forward and lyric, yet slightly off kilter because of the 5/4 rhythm. I found the theme by setting these words from Berry's A Standing Ground:

"I am not bound for any public space
but for ground of my own
where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods."

The 2nd theme is drawn from the hymn. In each movement is a section where thematic material is used against a minor cluster chord backdrop. After this moment in the Pastoral we go through a small development section of sorts and in sonata form fashion return to where we began.

The Song movement is a case where Berry's words demanded a particular approach. I had planned to write a ruminative carol of sorts. Yet the poem "Do Not Be Ashamed" is one of his toughest thematically and I had picked it to guide me.

"Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
'I am not ashamed.' A sure horizon
will come around you.
The heron will begin his evening flight from the hilltop."

It demanded music of some defiance and hopefully got it. The secondary section is indeed a simple song.

The Toccata brings all of the music to a close and utilizes all the material. The tone row is heard at the beginning and there are meditative moments throughout. However, the main theme of this is a kind of Scottish reel, a rollicking tune for the Violins in A Major.

Prior to the final section I wrote a short Fugato. All composers are forced to deal with the impossible genius of Bach while training and each one of us try at one point to wrestle unsuccessfully with his ghost and write a worthy fugue. It is somewhat hopeless but in my case, I discovered the reel could be used in canon beautifully and the poem I had picked begged for it. From "A Vision":

"The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health, wisdom and indwelling light.
This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its possibility"

A fugue is about separate voices, independent but working together, another Berry concept which runs through the poetry of this agrarian man of letters. The Hymn finally fights its way through the tone row chords and rings out like Sunday morning. After the Caithness tune is stated, climbing out of those dissonant sounds, the reel takes us home.

Rob Mathes.

ROB MATHES
TO MUSICALLY DIRECT
PRE-INAUGURAL CONCERT
JANUARY 18 AT THE
LINCOLN MEMORIAL

(GREENWICH, Conn., January 13, 2009) --

Greenwich resident and Grammy and Emmy nominated musician, music director, singer/songwriter, arranger, and record producer Rob Mathes is busy coordinating the musical line-up for this weekend's pre-inaugural "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial" concert scheduled for Sunday, January 18, in Washington, D.C., that is the Opening Celebration of the 56th Presidential Inaugural, which Mathes will musically direct and arrange. 

Scheduled to perform are: Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Jon BonJovi, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher Raymond IV, Shakira, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am, and Stevie Wonder, with additional performers possible. The concert's executive producer is George Stevens, Jr. (The Kennedy Center Honors), and is produced by Don Mischer (Olympic Ceremonies), and directed by Michael Stevens (The American Film Institute Salutes) and is a production of The Stevens Company in association with Don Mischer Productions.

"It is so exciting to be a part of history with this inaugural concert for Barack Obama," noted Mathes, who has been working around the clock to prepare for the concert. "I have never ever in my life experienced anything like this before -- it is great and I'm enjoying every minute of it!" 

The show will be broadcast on HBO on
Sunday, January 18, from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT).
HBO will broadcast the show on open access, which allows
those with cable or satellite to also join the opening celebration for free.

The NAKED SOUL Series at the Rubin Museum of Art

Rob Mathes with percussionist Ben Wittman and String Quartet----- June 12th, 2009 at 7pm $40, ($45 the night of)

Please join me Friday, June 12th at 7pm and visit the site to purchase tickets online: http://www.rmanyc.org/nakedsoul

This is going to be one of the most special events of the past few years for me.

I am playing some of the songs off Orchestral Songs, other brand new works and music off of Evening Train, Joining me are the amazing Percussionist Ben Wittman and a String Quartet featuring Max Mendel and members of Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. It will be an evening of very special music I believe, stuff I have not played live before.

The Naked Soul series at the Rubin is completely unique. Rosanne Cash, Jonatha Brooke, Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole and many others have been a part of it over the past few years. What makes it special is two things:

1. NO AMPLIFICATION---You hear completely acoustic performances in a beautiful acoustic space.
The hall only fits 140 people and it becomes an incredibly intimate and artful experience.

2. THE RUBIN's COLLECTION OF HIMALAYAN ART-- Each artist has a tour of the museum where he/she picks works that mirror the themes within that artiist's music and these images are projected behind the performance at particular times. The Art collection is phenomenal.

Rubin Museum of Art · 150 West 17th Street, New York, NY 10011 · 212.620.5000

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