Robin Spielberg
// Composer & PianistROBIN SPIELBERG is a best-selling composer and pianist from Maplewood, New Jersey. Her discography includes over twenty CDs and her music appears on over forty compilations around the world. Robin was also named to the prestigious Steinway Artist Roster in 1996. Her albums “Songs Of The Spirit” (1996), and “A New Kind Of Love” (2008), her tribute to Americana music, “Sea To Shining Sea: A Tapestry Of American Music” (2010), and her memoir audiobook and eBook “Naked On The Bench: My Adventures in Pianoland” (2013) are all available from Amazon.com and her website. Robin Spielberg is also Partner and Chief Operations Officer of The Roots Agency, a boutique entertainment booking agency for over thirty touring artists.
Website: www.robinspielberg.com
Photo: Walter Colley Images
Interview:
Music feeds our souls and has the ability to reach us emotionally; there is an undeniable link between music, love, and forgiveness. Hans Christian Andersen once said, “Where words fail, music speaks.” I have found this to be true, and perhaps it is for this reason that 90 percent of my compositions are wordless. How can I express the love I feel for my child or for the world? There are words, of course, and gestures that can express these emotions. However, when I compose a piece of music that encompasses my feelings, the strength of my intention is increased tenfold. I have noticed that music sung during prayer has the power of forgiveness; music sung, played, and heard during times of sadness and hardship can remove fear and transform us into loving beings. Music serves as a vehicle to release our feelings of anger, confusion, and agitation, and bring us to a place of love and joy.
Creating art is part of being human. Since the start of civilization, art has been used to not only decorate and adorn, but to communicate. Artistic images, music, structures—these are all used to communicate emotions and ideas, but they can also unify us and create a sense of community. Our artistic expression communicates human compassion, kindness, empathy, and understanding to the world, as well as the undeniable sadness, loneliness, and fears associated with being human. Music and art can transcend boundaries, religions, and cultures, and bridge the differences between us. From the drawings on cave walls to the woven fabrics in Tibet, to the impressionistic paintings of France to the music of the African Desert, human beings have the ability to see the beauty in art and to be forever touched by it. On February 4, 2008, NASA beamed a piece of music into deep space. The piece chosen was “Across the Universe” by the Beatles. Beatles expert Martin Lewis is quoted as saying that particular song “transcends ages, borders, language, and other barriers.” The action of transmitting this song demonstrates man’s urgency to communicate through music, even if it means it is possible no one will ever hear it.
Music has always been very personal for me. I began composing music as a form of self-expression; music allowed me to escape, even if for just awhile, from feelings of sadness and isolation—emotions most of us experience at some point during our childhoods. I began creating music to serve as a soundtrack for my own life experiences and emotions, but I discovered a few years into my recording career that people from all different walks of life were connecting with it—that my music was providing meaning beyond my own realm of understanding. This in itself has transformed my values. It has made me see that every creative expression, be it music, the written word or visual art, has the power to connect with someone’s emotional life. While not every piece of art will mean something to an individual, I see that the act of creating is as important as life itself.
© 2014 Robin Spielberg / Spobs Music Inc.
“Every creative expression, be it music, the written word or visual art, has the power to connect with someone’s emotional life.”
– Robin Spielberg, Composer & Pianist
