Robert Buxton seeks to bring music from the past to life for people today through performing and teaching. Robert completed a D.M.A in Piano Performance at the University of North Texas in 2018, where he also received an M.M., studying with Vladimir Viardo. Previously, he studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received a B.M. degree, and attended the Precollege. He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician; in New York, at Symphony Space, the YIVO institute, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, The Spanish Consulate, and Steinway Hall, in Europe, at the Scuola di Musica in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana (Lucca, Italy), and the Maison Erard (Amsterdam, Netherlands), and in Japan, in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, Kyoto, and Tokyo. Interviews and recordings of his playing have been featured on major classical radio stations in New York and Kyoto. In 2018, Robert performed solo recitals at the Governors Club and Carol Woods in Chapel Hill NC, and a fundraiser recital at Monumental United Methodist Church in Portsmouth, VA. He performs weekly solo and chamber lecture-recitals at retirement homes and schools, aiming to bring live classical music to a wider audience.
Robert's doctoral dissertation, "Musical Time and Memory: a Bergsonian study of Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 32 No. 12," involves the philosophy of Henri Bergson in elucidating the influence of memory on Rachmaninoff’s piano idiom. Philosophy Professor Dr. Pete A.Y. Gunter, and Musicology Professors Dr. Rebecca Geoffroy-Schwinden and Dr. Deanna Bush worked with him in depth on this subject. Also a composer, Robert is writing piano solo transcriptions of Gospel and Big Band music, pieces based on medieval chants, and original pieces inspired by Jack Kerouac’s Haikus. He is on the piano faculty at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, runs a private piano studio, and is music director at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Durham, NC. Robert and his wife Shoko live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with their cat Max.
Robert's doctoral dissertation, "Musical Time and Memory: a Bergsonian study of Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 32 No. 12," involves the philosophy of Henri Bergson in elucidating the influence of memory on Rachmaninoff’s piano idiom. Philosophy Professor Dr. Pete A.Y. Gunter, and Musicology Professors Dr. Rebecca Geoffroy-Schwinden and Dr. Deanna Bush worked with him in depth on this subject. Also a composer, Robert is writing piano solo transcriptions of Gospel and Big Band music, pieces based on medieval chants, and original pieces inspired by Jack Kerouac’s Haikus. He is on the piano faculty at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, runs a private piano studio, and is music director at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Durham, NC. Robert and his wife Shoko live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with their cat Max.
