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about the music

Robert Burbea has written the following poem to accompany Amara Vigil:

"Amara" (2000) by Robert Burbea

Dust of song and the dry image,
no more the friend on the broken shore.
No more the word, the clown, the moving hand,
nor the hidden august of bells and flowers;
for the gray bone lies shaken, and the sea's laughter gone.
Where the rotten carrion feeds the flies,
falls sweet the bitterness brow,--
is the apple-chime of reason and greed,
and shattered time in the inner sky;

but then always,
and still,
and now....


No-one's empty sleep in this radiant darkness,---

(does not turn, does not.....)

(and shattered time in the inner sky...)

knows only the freedom that it is;
(not different, never bound,)
sings forever in the silence
beyond all dying; ours
to move
between the two songs.

about the composer		back to top

Robert Burbea was born in London and began playing classical guitar at the age of 17. He traveled widely in Asia, Australia and the Middle East, studied psychology at Oxford University, but decided instead to follow a vocation in music. His interest in improvisation led him to Boston to study jazz at the Berklee College of Music; after graduating he taught guitar and led a jazz group performing his original compositions around the Boston area. Burbea continued his compositional studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, where his teachers were Michael Gandolfi, John Heiss, Lee Hyla, and Joseph Maneri, and at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where he studied with Martin Boykan, David Rakowski, and Yehudi Wyner.

Burbea's music has been performed in various cities throughout the United States and Canada. Recent works include Visions of Digambara (2001), Spiritus Sanctus Vivificans Vita (2000), and the octet The Circle of Darkness and Fire (1998), which received its UK premiere by the London Sinfonietta in April 2001. His work for chamber orchestra The Crows (1997) was on the Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM) shortlist of composers for the 2000-2001 season.

about the performers		back to top

Pianist Geoffrey Burleson has performed throughout Europe and North America as a solo and concerto pianist, chamber musician, and jazz performer. Recent engagements include performances of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the Northern Holland Philharmonic Orchestra in the Netherlands, and a recital of solo piano and vocal works (with soprano Maria Tegzes) at the Goethe-Institut Boston, marking the dual centenaries of Kurt Weill and Ernst Krenek. Burleson has performed as principal pianist with several chamber ensembles including Boston Musica Viva, Phantom Arts Ensemble, and Alea III. He has recorded solo and chamber music for the CRI, Dorian, Music & Arts, Neuma, New World, and Vienna Modern Masters labels; his recording of Arthur Berger's complete works for piano was released in November 2002 on the Centaur label. Burleson has held teaching positions at several colleges in Massachusetts including Brandeis University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Berklee College of Music, Clark University, and the College of the Holy Cross; he currently teaches at Princeton University in New Jersey and at Queensborough Community College in New York. A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory and the New England Conservatory, his principal teachers include Leonard Shure, Veronica Jochum, Lillian Freundlich, and Tinka Knopf. He also studied with Gilbert Kalish at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

related websites
http://www.bmv.org/bios/ensemble/burleson