Hailed by critics from the Chicago Tribune, New York Times to Paris Match, Robert Chumbley is one of the most versatile musicians of our day. Equally at home conducting and composing for the musical theater, opera, ballet and symphony, Mr. Chumbley  has served as Music Director for Atlanta Ballet for five seasons, and for Cleveland Opera. He has appeared as guest conductor with the Breckenridge Music Festival (Colorado), American Repertory Ballet, Norwegian National Opera, the Royal Ballet Orchestra (London), the Carolina Chamber Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony and the Prague Chamber Orchestra among other groups. He has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the renowned Piedmont Wind Symphony, and as Artistic Advisor and conductor to the Chicago Chamber Musicians.

 

His compositions have been commissioned throughout Europe and the United States and been performed by such organizations as Atlanta Ballet, the North Carolina Symphony, Omaha Symphony, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the Buffalo Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Piedmont Wind Symphony, Broyhill Chamber Ensemble, Voices of Change (Dallas), Boston Conservatory Chamber Players, the Da Vinci Trio, WGBH Radio (Boston, on a commission from Very Special Arts Massachusetts) and major international music festivals including An Appalachian Summer, Nestle/Musical Encounters Festival (Lisbon, Portugal), MANCA New Music Festival (Nice, France), North American New Music Festival and ArtsIgnite!. He has written incidental theatrical music and three large ballet scores. His works are recorded on MMC Records and published by Carl Fisher, Inc.

 

In 1989, Mr. Chumbley won the Composer Fellow Prize, presented by the North Carolina Arts Council and followed that award with the Composer Fellow Prize from the Nebraska Arts Council in 1993. In 1989 he was honored with a major grant from Opera America for the initial commission and development of his opera, Ordinary People, with the Piedmont Opera Theater and the Des Moines Metro Opera. In 1992, Opera America awarded him another grant for a second workshop production. The opera received a full semi-staged reading from the Maryland Opera Studio in 2008.  Mr. Chumbley has also been the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation grant (1980), the Irwin Freundlich Prize at the William Kapell International Piano Competition (1979) and First Prize in the International Musical Showcase Competition (1978).

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Recent performances of Mr. Chumbley's works include the world premiere and New York City premiere of his Particle I for solo cello (Millikin University, March 2017; Lincoln Center, June 2017).  The Letter for baritone and orchestra was premiered by Sinfonia da Camera, Ian Hobson, conductor at the Krannert Center for the Arts in October of 2015. His Three Etudes for solo piano was premiered by Ian Hobson at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City in January 2016. Mr. Hobson also premiered Mr. Chumbley's BRAHMSIANA ll (a set of three intermezzi) at Hobson's Carnegie Hall recital in March, 2019.

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On a commission from the Dranoff Two Piano Foundation and the Chicago Duo Piano Festival, Chumbley's work, CRIES AND WHISPERS, was premiered in Miami in November, 2018. It will receive its Chicago premiere in 2021. Millikin University and pianist Sylvan Negrutiu commissioned and presented the premiere of FIVE BAGATELLES for solo piano in May, 2019. Millikin University also commissioned his work for cello and wind symphony, PARTICLE ll, and performed it in March, 2018. A third commission from the university for a work for cello and piano will be premiered by cellist Amy Catron and Sylvan Negrutiu in November, 2020.

 

On the heels of the success of Mr. Chumbley's first opera, ORDINARY PEOPLE, Abilene Christian University Opera Theater commissioned his second opera, HIDDEN JEWEL. A love story between a German army officer and a Jewish girl during World War ll, the opera was premiered in a fully staged production in January, 2018. In early 2019, the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians awarded Mr. Chumbley the operatic rights to McCullers' masterpiece novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. In collaboration with librettist and McCullers scholar, Carey Scott Wilkerson, the opera will be workshopped at Millikin University and New York City in May, 2021.

 

As a pianist, Mr. Chumbley’s concert appearances have taken him throughout Europe, Japan, the United States and Africa. He has performed at Carnegie Hall at the invitation of Carnegie Hall, Kaufmann Hall at the 92nd St. Y, and, after accepting an invitation from the U.S. Congress and the Ford Foundation, at the second inauguration of President Bill Clinton. He has appeared as soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, South Florida Symphony, Lincoln Symphony, Orchestre Provence Cote d’Azur (Cannes) among others. He has performed the world and North American premieres of works by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Michael Colgrass (Tales of Power for solo piano at the 92nd St. Y in New York and Memento for two pianos and orchestra with the Minnesota Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin conducting) and Alfred Schnittke (Concerto with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Gerhardt Zimmermann conducting).

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Mr. Chumbley has served on the faculties of Appalachian State University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Juilliard School.