Composer Robert Sirota's ASSIMILATIONS To Be Performed For Concerts On The Slope 10th Anniversary Celebration

On Sunday March 20, 2022 at 3pm, composer Robert Sirota's Assimilations will be presented by Concerts on the Slope at St. John's Episcopal Church (139 St. John's Place).

This performance - given by violinist Clara Kim, clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson, cellist Benjamin Larsen, and pianist Fifi Zhang - is part of Concerts on the Slope's 10th Anniversary Celebration, a concert featuring the works of past and current Composers-in-Residence of Concerts on the Slope. Sirota was Composer-in-Residence with the series in 2014-2015.

Over five decades, composer Robert Sirota has developed a distinctive voice, clearly discernible in all of his work - whether symphonic, choral, stage, or chamber music. Writing in the Portland Press Herald, Allan Kozinn asserts: "Sirota's musical language is personal and undogmatic, in the sense that instead of aligning himself with any of the competing contemporary styles, he follows his own internal musical compass."

Assimilations (2010) is an attempt to express the poignant beauty and the sadness linking the world of Sirota's heritage with the person he has become. Sirota explains, "My paternal grandparents left the shtetl almost a century ago: my maternal grandparents were already in America well before that. I have been married to a Christian woman for forty years, and converted to Christianity some twenty-three years ago. I embrace my Christian faith with conviction and enthusiasm."

While Sirota's Jewishness is defined by many things (culture, food, mysticism, among others), one strong personality trait he says has always had, is a distinctly Jewish sense of urgency - of preparedness.

"As I grow older," Siriota says, "I realize that I have always been seeking to escape the cattle cars, to stay one step ahead of the persecutors, all of my life. While this makes me very effective in a crisis, it also haunts my sleep, and makes a mockery of my so-called assimilation."

About Robert Sirota: Robert Sirota's works have been performed by orchestras across the US and Europe; ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Sequitur, yMusic, Chameleon Arts, and Dinosaur Annex; the Chiara, American, Telegraph, Ethel, Elmyr, and Blair String Quartets; the Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios; and at festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, and Cooperstown music festivals; Bowdoin Gamper and Bowdoin International Music Festival; and Mizzou International Composers Festival. Recent commissions include Jeffrey Kahane and the Sarasota Music Festival, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Palladium Musicum, American Guild of Organists, the American String Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, the Naumburg Foundation, yMusic, and arrangements for Paul Simon. Commissions for Sirota@70 in honor of his 70th birthday include works for Thomas Pellaton, Carol Wincenc, Linda Chesis & the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival, and Sierra Chamber Society.

Recipient of grants from the Guggenheim and Watson Foundations, United States Information Agency, National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Center, Sirota's works are recorded on Legacy Recordings, National Sawdust Tracks, and the Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo and Crystal labels. His music is published by Muzzy Ridge Music, Schott, Music Associates of New York, MorningStar, Theodore Presser, and To the Fore.

Before becoming Director of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in 1995, Sirota served as Chairman of the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University and Director of Boston University's School of Music. From 2005-2012, he was the President of Manhattan School of Music, where he was also a member of the School's composition faculty.

A native New Yorker, Sirota studied at Juilliard, Oberlin, and Harvard and divides his time between New York and Searsmont, Maine with his wife, Episcopal priest and organist Victoria Sirota. They frequently collaborate on new works, with Victoria as librettist and performer, at times also working with their children, Jonah and Nadia, both world-class violists.

For complete information, visit www.robertsirota.com.