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 classical ambient music today, he has produced seminal work in this genre since 1976.s

Robert has earned degrees from the University of Oregon School of Music and the Graduate School of the University of California at San Diego, where he completed the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the studies of music composition and state-of-the-art computer applications to music synthesis, digital recording and sound processing. He has received music and video-art awards from significant international festivals, had his compositions performed by some of the world's leading instrumentalists and ensembles, earning him recognition from such mentors as Pulitzer Prize winning composers Bernard Rands and Roger Reynolds, and avant-garde music notable Joji Yuasa and Gordon Mumma. In 1991 he was named a Fulbright Research Scholar to Denmark and continued his compositional activities at the Danish Institute of Electroacoustic Music in Aarhus.

Robert is Professor of Music Composition and Director of the Center for Audio Recording Arts (CARA) in the School of Music at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia where he heads up a program in audio engineering and in the applications of computer technology to recorded music and sound design. In addition, he is a leading member of the composition faculty and teaches a broad spectrum of courses in composition, orchestration, analysis and world music. He was the 1994 recepient of the Georgia State University Distinguished Honors Professor Award.

Prior to joining the Georgia State University faculty, Robert was a Research Assistant at the Center for Music Experiment (CME) Computer Audio Research Laboratory at the University of California at San Diego (CARL) - now known as CRCA. During his time at CARL he was involved in digital audio research and composition using cmusic by F. Richard Moore as well as other related projects.

Recent awards include the "Mennzione d'Onore" in the 1994 Luigi Russollo Competition in Varese, Italy, the 1999 IMEB Electroacoustic Music Competition in Bourges, France and the 1995 Irino Prize Foundation Competition in Chamber Music Tokyo, Japan.

Robert's The Silent Shore was released in 1996 by Oasis of Canada as the first recording on their new Mirage label which is devoted to Ambient Music. This recording presents an extension of Robert's work in the Ambient genre, which has been on-going since 1976.

Influences as diverse as Chopin and Satie, Stockhausen, Varese and Cage, and Bowie and Eno can be heard in Robert's music. Robert says that his first love is the electronic music synthesizer but he is also active as an expressive vocalist, instrumentalist, video artist, computer musician, recording engineer and record producer.

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MOVING FORWARD

Margen Interview (1999)

Curriculum Vitae (now dated)