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Robin Engelman studied percussion and composition with Warren Benson at Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York. He is a founding member of Nexus - formed in 1971 - and a member of the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame; a recipient of the Toronto Arts Award and the Banff School of Fine Arts Donald Cameron Medal.
Robin is conductor and director of the University of Toronto Faculty of Music Percussion Ensemble. Its spring 2004 concert featured Canadian Highland Dance champion – ninth in the world - Georgina Muir, piper and professor emeritus of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto, David Waterhouse, organist Andrei Streliaev, a choir and vocal soloists, six piccolos and field drums. The percussion Ensemble recently released a CD titled Rondino that contains music by Nexus member Bob Becker, John Cage, Jo Kondo, Terry Hulick, and Faculty of Music composer John Beckwith. Highlights of a recent concert were premiers of four works by University of Toronto graduate Bruce Mather and five by John Beckwith, all written expressly for the ensemble.
Robin has conducted contemporary music concerts and recordings for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, New Music Concerts of Toronto, Chamber Concerts Canada and faculty recitals at the University of Toronto. In January 2004, he conducted Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon with the Art of Time Ensemble at Glenn Gould Theatre and five performances of Maricio Kagel's Variete, a large theatre work for actors, aerialists, comedians etc. and chamber orchestra presented by the Volcano Theatre Company of Toronto. Variete has been nominated for five Dora Awards.
Robin's career as a percussionist began in the North Carolina Symphony and continued with the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic and the Stratford Theatre and Music Festival Orchestras. In 1968, he became principal percussionist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa and later, Karel Ancerl. During the 1980's and 90's, he was principal percussionist with the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra. For more than fifteen years, he performed with New Music Concerts of Toronto. Founded by flutist Robert Aitken, its concerts featured the works of prominent contemporary composers who supervised the preparation its concerts.
During the last ten years Robin has become increasingly busy as a composer. His latest composition, She Dances (August 2003) was written at the request of the internationally known marimba soloist, She-e Wu and premiered by her in January 2004. Robin is at present working on a solo commissioned by Toronto percussionist Ray Dillard. Two works scheduled for completion in 2004-05 are commissions from Toronto's Ergo ensemble and the San Diego California Noise ensemble.
Robin's Songs for Soldiers, an arrangement for the Canadian Brass and Nexus of four historic songs associated with military history, was premiered in October of 2002 at the Glenn Gould Theatre and was featured on the C.B.C. Television show In Concert broadcast in February 2003. Also completed in 2002 were four arrangements for percussion quintet of songs by Toru Takemitsu and Handmade Proverbs *Four Pop Songs that Takemitsu wrote for the King's Singers.
His composition Dance Movements for Harp and Marimba (2000) was written for the Toronto duo ArpaTambora – Faculty of Music graduates Sanya Eng and Ryan Scott - who commissioned the work. Dance Movements was premiered by ArpaTambora at the American Harp Society International Harp Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Three of his compositions, Bridge, for five percussion, Remembrance, for five percussionists, trumpet and two trombones, and Lullaby for Esmé, for double lead (steel) pan solo and four percussion, are performed and have been recorded by faculty resident ensemble Nexus.
During the 1970's, Robin became interested in the large rope tensioned field drums used during the 16th - 19th centuries. He began collecting historic fife tunes and fife and drum tutors and began reading books and diaries to better understand the development of the drum and the lives of drummers prior to the 20th century. He has arranged more than one hundred historical tunes for various instrumental combinations and is preparing a book that will trace in melody and song the history of the Field drum from Renaissance England to the end of the Civil War in the United States.
In 2002 he was artistic director of a major concert for the Percussive Arts Society International Convention in Columbus, Ohio called The Drummer's Heritage. That concert was a survey of field drumming styles from the American Revolutionary War to the present and featured solo artists from Scotland, Switzerland, Canada and the United States, along with university, college and elementary school marching units. The concert was the largest in the history of the Percussive Arts Society and was documented by two major articles in the June and August 2003 issues of Percussive Notes, the Journal of the Percussive Arts Society.
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