Prolific in a variety of artistic disciplines, Justin Rubin (b.1971), composer, painter, organist, pianist, multimedia artist, educator, and author, was initially educated under the tutelage of his father. He subsequently pursued formal training at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division between 1986 and 1989, studying piano under Philip Kawin. He graduated from the State University of New York at Purchase in 1992 with the distinction of Summa Cum Laude where he studied composition under Richard Cameron-Wolfe. Continuing at Purchase, Rubin graduated in 1994 with a Master of Fine Arts in composition while beginning to explore performance art and multimedia presentations.
Following a Fulbright Scholarship in organ musicology to Denmark in the Fall of 1994, Rubin was appointed Interim Choir Director and Organist at New York City's prestigious Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, where he began composing numerous choral and ensemble pieces for liturgical and concert usage. It was during this time that he started to bring together the rigor of his academic compositional training and a writing style that could communicate with a diverse audience.
This new tonal language was further developed during his three years in residence at the University of Arizona (1995-98) under the guidance of Daniel Asia while completing the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition. One piece exemplifying Rubin's compositional concerns which was completed during this period, the cantata David and Absalom, was distinguished with a BMI Student Composer Award (1997).
In 1998, Dr. Rubin was appointed Chair of Theory/Composition (with additional responsibilities in Music Technology and Organ/Piano) at the University of Minnesota Duluth where he currently holds the rank of Associate Professor. In 1999, he spearheaded the formation of a New Music Festival at the University, with its first week-long concert series in 2000. The success of this event prompted the school to establish it as an annual series, of which Rubin is the artistic director.
As a composer, Justin Rubin has established himself as an emerging voice, receiving over one hundred performances of his works across the country and in Europe over the past fifteen years. He has received numerous commissions and his published catalogue includes works in almost every genre.
He has been chosen in consecutive years as a Minnesota Orchestra Perfect Pitch Composer by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis for his Passacaglia Tenebrosa (1999) and Symphonietta I (2000). In 2002, Richard Stoltzman performed the première of Rubin's Dedication and Fanfare for the opening of the Weber Music Hall in Minnesota. His cantata, From the Sonnets of Apology, was selected for the Plymouth Music Series: Essentially Choral reading sessions (2001-02). Rubin's works for violin and guitar have been performed throughout Europe by Duo46, and Duo Gastesi-Bezerra has championed Rubin's two-piano compositions, including the demanding Variations on "Deo Gracias" and À Rebours, in Spain, South America, and across the United States. Other ensembles that have performed his music include Zeitgeist and The New York Miniaturist Ensemble. Rubin has been a featured composer at the Aspen Composers' Conference, the Hermoupolis Guitar Festival, and the Guitar Foundation of America Conference, and a retrospective of his chamber works was presented in 2004 at Palm Beach Atlantic University.
Regionally, in 1999 the Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra commissioned and premièred his Four Sketches of an American Past. Other production highlights include a chamber oratorio, Old Turtle, commissioned by the Matinee Musicale of Duluth, which had its première in 2000, and ten performances of Euripides' Bacchae by the UMD Theatre Department in 2001, for which Rubin composed Odes, Dances, and Airs.
As a performer, Rubin was the pianist in residence with the ST/X Ensemble Xenakis USA from 1994 to 2000, recording two CD's with the group (including solo works and concertos to critical acclaim) on the Mode and Vandenburg Wave labels and giving a live broadcast concert at Radio France in Paris in 1998. In May 2000, he performed Xenakis' first piano concerto, Synaphaï, with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon. Other composers that Rubin has given premières of in the United States include Kaikhosru Sorabji, Dary John Mizelle, and numerous student pieces.
Rubin has also concertized widely on organ, specializing in works of less heralded composers and always performing new pieces. In May, 1996, he was invited by Gerre Hancock to give an all-Hugo Distler organ recital at famed St. Thomas Church in New York City. In November, 2000, he was also invited by the American Guild of Organists to perform selections of J.S.Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge as part of the 250th Memorial Minnesota Bach Festival co-sponsored by National Public Radio's Pipedreams. Beginning in 2002 he was chosen to perform three times at St.Paul's Church of Saint Louis, King of France, noontime recital series, including the 2002-03 season opener. A long-time fan of silent film, he has recently turned his performance interests on organ to literature appropriate to this genre.
His multimedia work ranges from experimental 'video paintings', such as La Zarabanda, and art installations, such as The Numbers of Genocide, which was a part of the 2004 Baeumler-Kaplan Holocaust Commemoration, to the documentary/essay Shaping Fragility: The Dream of Making Music from Sand.
As an artist, Rubin works primarily in the abstract, creating a succession of distinct and evolving formal archetypes in the hard-edged painting tradition. In the field of writing, Rubin has composed poems, short stories, instruction-booklet-like performance art pieces, as well as extensive academic and instructional materials.
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