Live World Premiere of Orchestral Tribute to Veterans November 12

Composer/Pianist/Mental Health Advocate Robin Spielberg’s First Symphonic Work By Way of the Wind Makes World Premiere Live Debut as Part of Week-Long Residency in Lake Jackson, TX

Veterans Day Concert with the Brazosport Symphony Orchestra at the Clarion Highlights “New Freedom Suite” Tribute to Military Service Members and Veterans

Sunday, November 12 at 4 pm at Brazosport College

Free Tickets Available for Veterans Through Vettix.org

Music and Mental Health Workshops at Angleton High School and the Brazosport Center for Arts & Sciences Precede Performance

Billboard charting American pianist, Steinway Artist, composer, and author Robin Spielberg, one of America’s pre-eminent living female composers, who began her career as one of the founding members of the Atlantic Theater Company and has since flourished with a wide-ranging discography including arrangements of American standards, original pieces for piano/ensemble, holiday recordings, lullabies and more, brings her talent as a performer, storyteller and mental wellness advocate to Lake Jackson, Texas in November with a weeklong residency culminating in the live debut of her first symphonic work, By Way of the Wind. The innovative concert will include poetry, spoken word, and film clips enhancing the experience of the music.

The orchestrated work will have its live debut in a Veterans Day concert on Sunday, November 12 at 4 pm at The Clarion at Brazosport College, performed with the Brazosport Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Brian Casey. Free tickets are available for military veterans through Vettix.org.

As Spielberg describes her most ambitious work to date, “By Way of the Wind is music that reflects how we are carried, pushed, challenged, and guided through life by unseen forces.” A theme of resilience runs through the 11 tracks, originally recorded with the Budapest Scoring Orchestra for the CD. The “New Freedom Suite” at the heart of the Veterans Day concert pays tribute to veterans and active military and was inspired in various ways over three decades by the circumstances during which they were written – while Spielberg was composing incidental music for a play set in the Civil War; a play’s opening night disruption when the Persian Gulf War broke out; and the start of the war in Ukraine in the last year. A national tour is planned using local orchestras for 2024. The Texas performance will also include Spielberg’s “West Bank Serenade,” which she will perform solo on piano.

In the days leading up to the concert, noted mental wellness advocate Spielberg will be a guest speaker for two mental wellness workshops, the first with local music students at the Angleton High School about working through performance anxiety, and one open to the public on Wednesday, November 8 at 7 pm at the Brazosport Center for the Arts & Sciences about the connections between music and mental wellness. The workshops continue Spielberg’s multi-faceted work as a founding member of the Mindful Music Association, a National Artist Spokesperson for the American Music Therapy Association, and a C.A.R.E. Channel Artist featured in hospitals across the country, making the connections between music and mental health. Spielberg’s popular TEDx TALK on music and wellness has over 400,000 views (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LTusPwrH9E) and inspired a tour of lectures and workshops in schools, hospitals, community centers, nursing care facilities and performing arts centers nationwide.

The Wednesday, November 8, 7 pm workshop is open to the public and free of charge. Tickets for the Sunday, November 12, 4 pm concert are $30 Adult; $22 Senior/Brazosport College Employee/FSA; $10 Brazosport College Student/Child and available at the box office at (979) 230-3156 or The Clarion at Brazosport College (choicecrm.net). Military veterans can secure free tickets for the concert through Vettix.org.

A limited-edition 60-minute CD of By Way of the Wind includes a 20-page collection of stories that inspired the music, poetry, line drawings, and quotes, an enamel collector’s pin, and postcards intended to inspire communication and connection. The CD package ($42.50; October 20, 2023 release) is available at https://www.robinspielberg.com.

About Robin Spielberg

Robin Spielberg is one of America’s most beloved pianist/composers. With an impressive tour schedule and hundreds of thousands of recordings sold, this Steinway Artist has been winning the hearts of listeners around the world with her compelling melodies and sensitive piano techniques since debuting her first recording of original solos for piano, Heal of the Hand. Spielberg began her music career as one of the 30 undergraduate founding members of the Atlantic Theater Company working with David Mamet and William H. Macy and composed the music for their first full musical, Balloonland. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1997.

A prolific composer, Spielberg has 24 recordings to her credit including her latest release and appears on more than 40 compilations around the world. Her discography includes albums of original piano solos, arrangements of American standards, original pieces for piano/ensemble, recordings for the holidays, a CD of American melodies, and a CD of lullabies. She is in the top 1% of artists played on Pandora Radio, the internet’s largest radio station. In addition to over 200 million streams on that platform, she has 160,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and has sold over a million physical CDs of her piano-centric music.

Spielberg’s memoir, Naked on the Bench: My Adventures in Pianoland, won the 2014 Gold Medal in the Reader’s Favorite International Book Award contest. In it, she demystifies the life of a touring artist with humor, praised as a “must read” for anyone going into the arts by the Kirkus Review.