~ Aristodemos Pierides

~ Darren Bergstein

One of the most overlooked composers working in the Ambient genre today!
 

~ The Organization of Sound

 

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The term musical alchemist best describes modern music composer Robert Scott Thompson. Combining his mastery of the electroacoustic, contemporary instrumental, and avant-garde genres into a swirling cohesive whole, he is an important pioneer on music's new frontier. Hailed as one of the most important composers working in electroacoustic, acousmatic and classical ambient music today, he has produced and published seminal work since 1976.

Influences as diverse as Chopin and Satie, Stockhausen, Varèse and Cage, and Bowie and Eno can be heard in Robert's music. Robert's first love is the electronic music synthesizer, but he is also an expressive vocalist, instrumentalist, video artist, computer musician, sound designer and film composer.
 

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Thompson is a composer of both instrumental and electroacoustic music and is currently Professor of Music Composition at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He earned the B.Mus. degree from the University of Oregon and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). His primary teachers include Bernard Rands, Roger Reynolds, Joji Yuasa, and F. Richard Moore.

He has created work in a wide variety of forms ranging from chamber and orchestral music to works for the virtuoso soloist, computer music, and video and performance art. He is the recipient of several prizes and distinctions for his music including the First Prize in the 2003 Musica Nova Competition (Czech Republic), the First Prize in the 2001 Pierre Schaeffer Competition (Italy) and awards in the XVI Concorso Internazionale "Luigi Russolo" (Italy), Irino Prize Foundation Competition for Chamber Music (Japan), and Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges - including the Commande Commission 2007 (France), among others.

He was a Research Assistant of the Center for Music Experiment (CME) Computer Audio Research Lab (CARL) during the 1980s, assisting significant composers in the realization of advanced computer music works.  In 1991, he was named a Fulbright Fellow and Research Scholar by the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars  (CIES) and was Composer in Residence at the Danish Institute of Electroacoustic Music (DIEM) where he collaborated on fundamental research in computer music and composed the long-form acousmatic work - The Strong Eye.  More recently (2007), he was Composer in Residence at the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique (France, 2007) working on an IMEB Commande Commission.

Over the years, RST has become increasingly well known internationally for his instrumental and electroacoustic works, often comissioned by prestigious organizations, ensembles  and instrumentalists, and also for his many recordings which have been broadcast worldwide. His work has been presented in numerous important festivals such as  the Koriyama Bienalle, Sound, Presences, Synthese, Sonorities, ICMC, SEAMUS and the Cabrillo Music Festival, and has been broadcast on Radio France, BBC, NHK, ABC, WDR, NPR and numerous other networks around the world. His music is published on recordings by EMF Media, Neuma, Drimala, Capstone, Hypnos, Oasis/Mirage, Groove, Lens, Space for Music, Zero Music, Twelfth Root, and Aucourant record labels, among others, and in print by Aucourant Media Productions.

 

Robert Scott Thompson's music binds to your DNA coil with the tenacity of a barnacle. Every time you return to one of his CDs some voice lost in the tedium of time screams through your spine with the gelid insistence of an Antarctic blizzard, demanding that you write a tumultuous review that will drive the ambient loving public to proclaim him as the Pukka. Just listen to 'Cloud Cover' and the surging climax will propel your consciousness to merge with the quiddity that seeps into the rubber pumpkin in your head.

The new album arrived yesterday, and those nasty mosquitoes that jabbered in my dreams about evil bees in cheese have vanished. The Pukka, ladies and gentlemen, has delivered another balm wrapped in an ambient calm.

~ Rabelais

RST's music swoops upon those who bare their mazard to listen. Those last movements break upon the imagination like dream typhoons splashed by multi-colored orisons from distant galaxies.

~ Rabelais
 

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Frontier Robert Scott Thompson The landmark follow-up CD to The Silent Shore, a recording considered by many to be a "classic" in the modern ambient genre. Frontier quickly became a favorite of critics and connoisseurs alike and further established Robert Scott Thompson as a leading figure in the ambient and electronic music scene. Limited supplies of this rare and hard to find CD are on hand at present and the disc is currently available in its original packaging as published by Oasis/Mi...more

Manifold Robert Scott Thompson Manifold is the fourth in a series of long-form ambient works. Each of these exists in different versions, often initially with a conception for installation presentation using multiple compact disc players and chance operations. These works are permitted to evolve continuously and become soundscapes for specific events, places and aesthetically arranged environments or combine with intermedia elements such as light and video. While the installation versions of these works are perh...more

Siren (Electroacoustic Music) Robert Scott Thompson Siren (1997) - Siren is a work which exists in three versions and this concert version is the first of these; a multi-sectional, large-scale composition intended for live sound diffusion presentation. A second work was created from the materials of the original project for multiple compact disc players in an environmental installation context. Finally, a third “realization” recording was created from the installation work and presents the sound environment as one...more

Alchemy Robert Scott Thompson Alchemy presents ambient soundscapes of delicate nuance and beautiful musicality. In this recording, Robert Scott Thompson returns to his roots of minimalist, tonal composition within the ambient genre. This CD presents subtle music of serene proportions and brilliance. Recorded expressly for Jim Brenholts, and his book "Tracks Across the Universe - A Chronology of Ambient and Electronic Music", in Fall of 2000, Alchemy proposes a new d...more

Meridian (Chamber Music Works) Robert Scott Thompson Meridian features works for reduced forces, solos and duos, composed during the period from 1989 to 1997. The selection of the works for this disc was informed by a desire to feature several instruments and contrasting compositions which exploit their unique properties and potentials. Meridian : for solo flute - is a virtuostic expression which features microtonal passages within the overall formal design. The musical language is quasi-serial and derives from ...more

Cosmic Fire Robert Scott Thompson Cosmic Fire is a collection of electroacoustic works by Robert Scott Thompson composed during a particularly prolific and creative period in the mid-1990's. The earliest of these compositions is RuST, an award-winning composition composed in 1994. During this period his work was characterized by the full engagement of the software synthesis program Csound, together with software of his own design for algorithmic composition of texture and gesture. Having worked with cmusic, ...more

Frozen Light Robert Scott Thompson "...powerful mindscapes of great depth and emergent beauty." Frozen Light is a new collection of four long-form ambient works from Robert Scott Thompson. Based in the style of abstract minimalism and comprised of drones, loops and sonorous events, Frozen Light extends the language of long-form classical ambient music. Intended as a means to provide a sonic tinting to the environment, Frozen Light...more

Amorphia Robert Scott Thompson Amorphia is a collection of computer music works created in 1995. Each of the works is concerned with the algorithmic definition of musical structures; largely through the use of stochastic methods – utilizing various probabilistic means to create musical materials and textures. At the same time, the concept of these works in sound and “instrumentation” is as simulacra of chamber and orchestral ensembles. The appearance ...more