~ Aristodemos Pierides

~ Darren Bergstein

One of the most overlooked composers working in the Ambient genre today!
 

~ The Organization of Sound

 

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The term musical alchemist best describes modern music composer Robert Scott Thompson. Combining his mastery of the electroacoustic, contemporary instrumental, and avant-garde genres into a swirling cohesive whole, he is an important pioneer on music's new frontier. Hailed as one of the most important composers working in electroacoustic, acousmatic and classical ambient music today, he has produced and published seminal work since 1976.

Influences as diverse as Chopin and Satie, Stockhausen, Varèse and Cage, and Bowie and Eno can be heard in Robert's music. Robert's first love is the electronic music synthesizer, but he is also an expressive vocalist, instrumentalist, video artist, computer musician, sound designer and film composer.
 

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Thompson is a composer of both instrumental and electroacoustic music and is currently Professor of Music Composition at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He earned the B.Mus. degree from the University of Oregon and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). His primary teachers include Bernard Rands, Roger Reynolds, Joji Yuasa, and F. Richard Moore.

He has created work in a wide variety of forms ranging from chamber and orchestral music to works for the virtuoso soloist, computer music, and video and performance art. He is the recipient of several prizes and distinctions for his music including the First Prize in the 2003 Musica Nova Competition (Czech Republic), the First Prize in the 2001 Pierre Schaeffer Competition (Italy) and awards in the XVI Concorso Internazionale "Luigi Russolo" (Italy), Irino Prize Foundation Competition for Chamber Music (Japan), and Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges - including the Commande Commission 2007 (France), among others.

He was a Research Assistant of the Center for Music Experiment (CME) Computer Audio Research Lab (CARL) during the 1980s, assisting significant composers in the realization of advanced computer music works.  In 1991, he was named a Fulbright Fellow and Research Scholar by the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars  (CIES) and was Composer in Residence at the Danish Institute of Electroacoustic Music (DIEM) where he collaborated on fundamental research in computer music and composed the long-form acousmatic work - The Strong Eye.  More recently (2007), he was Composer in Residence at the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique (France, 2007) working on an IMEB Commande Commission.

Over the years, RST has become increasingly well known internationally for his instrumental and electroacoustic works, often comissioned by prestigious organizations, ensembles  and instrumentalists, and also for his many recordings which have been broadcast worldwide. His work has been presented in numerous important festivals such as  the Koriyama Bienalle, Sound, Presences, Synthese, Sonorities, ICMC, SEAMUS and the Cabrillo Music Festival, and has been broadcast on Radio France, BBC, NHK, ABC, WDR, NPR and numerous other networks around the world. His music is published on recordings by EMF Media, Neuma, Drimala, Capstone, Hypnos, Oasis/Mirage, Groove, Lens, Space for Music, Zero Music, Twelfth Root, and Aucourant record labels, among others, and in print by Aucourant Media Productions.

 

Robert Scott Thompson's music binds to your DNA coil with the tenacity of a barnacle. Every time you return to one of his CDs some voice lost in the tedium of time screams through your spine with the gelid insistence of an Antarctic blizzard, demanding that you write a tumultuous review that will drive the ambient loving public to proclaim him as the Pukka. Just listen to 'Cloud Cover' and the surging climax will propel your consciousness to merge with the quiddity that seeps into the rubber pumpkin in your head.

The new album arrived yesterday, and those nasty mosquitoes that jabbered in my dreams about evil bees in cheese have vanished. The Pukka, ladies and gentlemen, has delivered another balm wrapped in an ambient calm.

~ Rabelais

RST's music swoops upon those who bare their mazard to listen. Those last movements break upon the imagination like dream typhoons splashed by multi-colored orisons from distant galaxies.

~ Rabelais
 

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Sapphire Robert Scott Thompson A long-form ambient composition, Sapphire is a work comprised of one long, developmental track of over 60 minutes. Similar to RST's other long-from ambient recordings, Siren (Ambient), Music for a Summer Evening, Manifold and Frozen LIght, Sapphire adds to an important sub-genre within ambient music. Peaceful and serene, the music on this album is comprised of piano sounds and is composed using musical stochastics. <...more

Siren (Ambient) Robert Scott Thompson Siren (Ambient) is the most evocative long-form ambient work ever realized based on the female voice. The entire hour-long work is created from the sultry singing of jazz vocalist Mary-Jo Bischoff. Through the use of composed models and their development using computer music techniques, unique textures and sounds were developed. These materials, used for the avant-garde computer music work Siren  were recast, according to probabilistic methods into a subtle, airy...more

Blue Day Robert Scott Thompson Blue Day is one of the finest of Robert's ambient discs. Stylistically related to The Silent Shore and Fountainhead: Cloud Cover, this disc presents 8 tracks of innovative and rich ambient music in the "classical" tradition. The title track clocks-in at 25 minutes and provides a deeply immersive listening experience. One of the basic tenets of classical ambient music is t...more

In Ruins (2 CD Set) Robert Scott Thompson In Ruins was composed and recorded in 1981 and is the first significant ambient music recording by Robert Scott Thompson. Now, fully re-mastered from the original analogue recordings, In Ruins is presented in its entirety on two compact discs. For fans and serious collectors of classical ambient music, In Ruins provides elegant harmonic and melodic elements within the context of innovative and immaginative soundscapes. One of the basic tenet...more

Cytizen Robert Scott Thompson Cytizen presents a collection of instrumental electronica in the avant-garde, post-modern pop style. Tracks presented on the disc were recorded during a five year period beginning in 1981 and ending in 1986. Influences from the cutting edge of pop music can heard combined with avant-garde and electroacoustic sensibilities. When recordings cross stylistic boundaries, as Cytizen does, it becomes difficult for reviewers to categorize the music. Some listeners hav...more

As in the Dark, All Cats are Grey Robert Scott Thompson As in the Dark, All Cats are Grey, is one of the earliest significant releases of contemporary electronica by master artist, Robert Scott Thompson. Originally, composed and recorded in 1986, it would be more than ten year before it became available on compact disc. Now fully re-mastered and edited, it is an essential addition to any collection of RST's work. Many reviewers, not knowing which stylistic box to put such imaginative recording into, have labeled it New-Age. Yet,...more

Fountainhead: Cloud Cover Robert Scott Thompson CLOUD COVER is the debut of the ambient music project - FOUNTAINHEAD - the creative inspiration of well known ambient music composer Robert Scott Thompson. This recording, just under 70 minutes in duration, features a beautiful collection of nine tracks of classical ambient music. The title track is 18 minutes long and envelopes the listener in a floating, elegant, sonic reverie. Other tracks feature propulsive, yet subtle, percussion. A wonderfully balanced album which flows toget...more

Music for a Summer Evening Robert Scott Thompson An enthralling composition of one single movement over seventy minutes in duration, Music for a Summer Evening is a work which crosses the stylistic boundaries separating ambient music and the contemporary avant-garde. Composer Robert Scott Thompson weaves a beautiful tapestry of sound and silence using both acoustic and purely electronic elements. Psaltery, strings, singing, piano, and bells are heard among many other sounds and textures, but in a context that is tremendously futu...more