Robert Dick

Robert Dick describes himself as "a musician with 21st century skills and 18th century attitudes, being totally at home as a performer, composer and improvisor." With equally deep roots in classical music old and new and in free improvisation and new jazz, he has established himself as a legitimate heir to virtuoso composer/performers like Chopin, Paganini and Jimi Hendrix. Robert Dick has often been referred to as "the Hendrix of the flute" because of his revolutionary musical approach and the ultra-high intensity level of his performances. Listening to him play solo has been likened to the experience of hearing a full orchestra. Dick's concerts typically include performances on flute, alto flute, bass flutes in C and F, and the giant, stand-up contrabass flute.

Never content with the flute's traditional role as an instrument that sounds one note at a time with a rather limited coloristic pallette, Dick has literally recreated the flute's music in a post-Modern way. Drawing on his imagination, well fueled with world musics and inspirations from electronic and electric music, rock and jazz, he has invented and developed countless new ways of playing the flute, including thousands of multiple note combinations. "I play the flute as a human-powered synthesizer, capable of continuous transformation of sound. A quick example -- the flute can be an amazing percussive instrument, then glide into wind sounds while the percussion continues, then add chords and have a lead voice play over the chords simultaneously -- all totally acoustic without any electronic processing. It's a function of imagination, sustained drive and desire."

A prolific recording artist, Dick has been exploring the jazz side of his music in collaboration with Dave Soldier and the Soldier String quartet. Their CD Jazz Standards on Mars (ENJA Records) features music by John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Jimi Hendrix, Wayne Shorter, Ornette Coleman and Robert Dick, continues the collaboration with the Soldier String Quartet that began with 1993's critically acclaimed Third Stone from the Sun (New World Records). Performing on Jazz Standards on Mars are the renowned violinist Regina Carter and the electric bassist Richard Bona, along with the quartet and a stellar cast of guest artists. "Jazz Standards on Mars takes chamber jazz to a new level" -- Jazztimes.

Dick's newest release is the A.D.D. Trio's Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat (That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles), also on ENJA Records. This recording, with Christy Doran, electric guitar and Steve Argüelles, drums, features Dick's full range of flutes and sonics in a jazz context that flows from lightning virtuosity to relaxed reflectiveness.

Robert Dick has been a presence in Downbeat for the last several years. He is steadily climbing in the rankings of the annual Downbeat Critics' Poll for Talent Deserving Wider Recognition and was the subject of a major article in that magazine's February 1999 issue: Howard Mandel's "Robert Dick -- The Outer Limits". In February 2000, the Chicago Tribune ran a feature on Dick titled "Innovative Style that Knows No Boundaries".

As a composer in the classical world, Robert Dick is one of only two Americans ever to be awarded both Composers' Fellowships (twice) and a Solo Recitalist Grant by the N.E.A. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition and commissions from the Jerome Foundation, Fromm Music Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Trust, the city of Zürich, the Philharmonie in Cologne, and many others. He is honored to have received the Pro Musicis Foundation International Award. At the 1999 National Flute Association Convention in Atlanta, Dick was soloist in the second performance of his Concerto for Flute/Bass Flute, Strings and Percussion. Close to two thousand flutists gave his performance, and his music, a standing ovation. At the premiere of his concerto at Town Hall in New York City, the New York Times spoke of the work as "riveting in its timbral variety and brilliant in Mr. Dick's playing."

The 2000-01 concert season finds Robert Dick performing in Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Canada, Mexico and the United States. Masterclasses frequently accompany his solo concerts and he has taught at the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel, Juilliard, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Vienna Conservatory, the University of Montreal, the Royal College of Music in London, Soai University in Kyoto and very many others.

Mr. Dick also does extended residencies at universities and music schools. He feels that the opportunity for in-depth instruction and follow up that a five or ten day class provides is invaluable for students. He has done six such residencies at the North Carolina School of the Arts. At Chicago's DePaul University, he used a five day residency to create a new work with the flute class. Teaching both basic improvisation and introducing extended flute techniques, he led the class in a concert presentation of his Transdimensional Lending Library. Student comments included "You have opened a whole new world of music for me"; "This week will help us grow in 21st century music"; and "I can't thank you enough for doing what you're doing with the flute and sharing it with us and the world."

Robert Dick's multifaceted musical life also includes work on redesigning the flute itself. He is currently collaborating with Bickford Brannen of Brannen Brothers Flutemakers on the development of the "Robert Dick Glissando Headjoint", which does for the flute what the "whammy bar" does for the electric guitar. Dick performs on a special prototype flute that Brannen built for him, a radically expanded version of Brannen's Kingma-System model. While playable as a normal Boehm flute, this flute has a myriad of new musical possibilities and Dick's newer compositions embrace these freedoms. Robert Dick also has a relationship with Emerson Musical Instruments, which produces the Robert Dick Model bass flute. The goal of this bass flute, which Dick plays in his concerts alongside of the unique Brannen, is to be a powerful, rich-toned yet modestly priced instrument.

As an improviser, Robert Dick is a member of groups based both in New York and Europe. European groups include the A.D.D. Trio (with Steve Argüelles, drums and Christy Doran, electric guitar), Oscura Luminosa (with Petia Kaufmann, harpsichord; Conrad Steinmann, recorders; Sara Maurer, voice and Alfred Zimmerlin, cello), Aurealis (with John Wolf Brennan, piano and Daniele Patumi, contrabass), and Dick/Kieckbusch/Zimmerlin (with Alfred Zimmerlin and Uli Kieckbusch, piano).

In New York, he is a member of the ambient band King Chubby (with Ed Bialek, keyboards and samplers and Will Ryan, percussion), New Winds (with Ned Rothenberg, alto sax, bass clarinet, shakuhachi and Herb Robertson, trumpets), Steel and Bamboo (with Steve Gorn, Indian "bansuri" bamboo flute and Gerry Hemingway, drums), and Tambastics (with Denman Maroney, piano; Mark Dresser, bass and Gerry Hemingway, drums).

Over the years, Robert Dick has performed with John Zorn, Steve Lacy, Evan Parker, Barry Guy, George Lewis, Marty Ehrlich, Shelley Hirsch, Leroy Jenkins, Min Tanaka, Georg Graewe, Jöelle Leandre, Klaus König and very many more of Europe and America's finest improvisors.

Further information about Robert Dick can be found under:
www.robertdick.net