Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame: Robert Botti

Oboist Robert Botti has performed throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Asia as an orchestral player, chamber musician, and soloist. A native of New York, he studied with Ronald Roseman and Harlold Gomberg at the Juilliard School where he received his bacherlor’s and master’s degrees. While still a student he made his solo debut with the Juilliard Orchestra performing the Richard Strauss Oboe Concerto in Alice Tully Hall. Mr. Botti joined the New York Philharmonic in 1992 after serving as Principal Oboist of the New York City Opera Orchestra and Opera Orchestra of New York. As a soloist he has performed numerous concerti including the Mozart Oboe Concerto with the New York Symphonic Ensemble. Solo recitals have included Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Botti performs frequently throughout the season with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles in both Avery Fisher and Merkin concert halls. He performed the Tafelmusik Quartet by Telemann as a guest on Judith LeClair’s New York Legends recording. He is featured on the premiere recording of Arnold Sturm’s Suite for Oboe and Piano, and he has participated in numerous other recordings and performances with ensembles including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Sylvan Winds, Philharmonia Virtuosi, New York Kammermusiker, Amadeus Ensemble, and Harmonie Ensemble. As a guest artist with Jazz at Lincoln Center he has collaborated and recorded with Gunther Schuller, Wynton Marsalis, and Joe Lovano among others. In 2003-2004 Mr. Botti was Visiting Professor of Oboe and B.A. Nugent Professor of Performance Studies at the University of Illinois. He remains on both the Woodwind Performance and Orchestral Performance faculties at the Manhattan School of Music.

Concert Dates

  • New York City

Concert Program

Concert Program

Video

Composers Selected

  • Ground Zero - 2:00 AM

    David Avshalomov

    Born in the Bronx, lived in Manhattan as a boy, still feel a connection to The City. After 9/11 I visited Ground Zero, wept at the nearby memorial, changed forever. This meditation imagines the quietest, darkest time of night there, thoughtful, melancholy, leaving us to our own memories.

    Composer/conductor/singer David Avshalomov writes in an accessible neo-Romantic, modern-tonal style, displaying a lyric gift and rhythmic vitality in his works for choirs, voice, chamber ensembles, band, and orchestra, earning numerous regional commissions and national awards. His music is performed across the US and Europe, and recorded on Albany and Naxos.

  • Here and Now

    Robert Botti

    Oboist Robert Botti has performed throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Asia as an orchestral player, chamber musician, and soloist. A native of New York, he studied with Ronald Roseman and Harold Gomberg at the Juilliard School. Mr. Botti joined the New York Philharmonic as Second Oboe in 1992 after previously serving as Principal Oboe of the New York City Opera Orchestra. His continuing interest in contemporary music has allowed him to work with many young composers throughout his career. He remains on both the Woodwind Performance and Orchestral Performance faculties at the Manhattan School of Music as well as on the faculty of New York University.

  • West 83rd Street Choro

    Douglas DaSilva

    New York City composer, guitarist, educator, filmmaker, Douglas DaSilva is Artistic Director of the Composer's Voice Concert Series and Premiere Salon Concerts. He is dedicated to promoting new music and living composers. His cello solo “Stabat Serban” was performed at the 2013 George Enescu Festival by Maestro Serban Nichifor.

    This piece is composed in a traditional Brazilian Choro form: AABBACCA with each section being only 3 measures (A), 4 measures (B), and 4 measures (C) in length. So, I’ve compressed a Choro to squeeze into the space of a New York City apartment.

  • Cityscape

    David J. Grossman

    Double bassist and composer David J. Grossman enjoys a multi-faceted career in the realms of classical and jazz music, performing in concert halls, chamber music settings, and jazz venues worldwide. Born and educated in New York City, he joined the New York Philharmonic as its youngest member in Spring 2000. Mr. Grossman has been an ardent student of Orin O'Brien, with whom he now enjoys the pleasure of playing in the Philharmonic bass section. He is also a member of the double bass faculty of Manhattan School of Music.

  • City Shadows

    Bob Magnuson

    Technically a composer, Luke Deane likes to perform what he writes and he likes to write all kinds of things. He has performed on stages, car parks, mountainsides, over a network and even on a departing train. This Year, Luke read peoples fortunes by candlelight, cut up a pineapple to music and hung out of a window dressed as Mozart! Join Luke and the Birmingham Conservatoire gang for a bit of contemporary music magic!

    Bob Magnuson - Saxophones, Oboe, English horn, Flutes, Clarinets, Ethnic flutes, EWI and WX7 wind synthesizers. Bob has played on the soundtracks of hundreds of televison commercial campaigns including Coca Cola, Macy's, AT&T, J.C. Penney, Chevrolet and recorded and performed with popular artists Whitney Houston, Patti Austin, Phoebe Snow, Cleo Laine, Marc Cohn, Michael Bolton, B.B. King, Issac Hayes, Eddie Murphy, Expose,,and Frank Zappa's Universe. As a studio musician Bob has enjoyed playing next to saxophone greats David Sanborn, Lenny Picket, Michael Brecker, Lee Konitz, and Ronnie Cuber. His professional career supports his love for jazz and ethnic musics. Constant study ,writing,and performing is his passion.

  • New & York

    David Mastikosa

    David Mastikosa was born 6th November in Prijedor ( Bosnia and Herzegovina ).After he finished High school, 2011 he enrolled the Academy of Arts ( Banja Luka University ) in the class of professor Tatjana Milosevic - Mijanovic, Composition Department.At International Competition of composition Edict of Milan 313 he has won third prize with composition Echoes of the past,Constantinople. His compositions have been performed in Japan,USA, France, Italy, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina by top artist like Sauro Berti - bass clarinet (Italy) and Quator Girard - string quartet (France). He composed music for theater show "Women in Parliament".He is author of examples for solfeggio that were used on Competitions of music schools in Republic of Srpska.He is also playing clarinet.Alea Publishing published his piece for bass clarinet solo, Metastasi della felicita in USA.

    New & York are two parallel constructors of New York City.At the beginning of the composition you can clearly monitor the dialogue between them. Later, there is a tendency for their merger into union called New York. I chose the New York topic just because of the possibility of division into two parts.When they are combined we get the right theme and their development process lead to unity

  • A Million Numbered Streets

    Gary Powell Nash

    Gary Powell Nash is Associate Professor of Music at Fisk University in Nashville, TN where he teaches and coordinates courses in music theory, technology, composition, applied woodwinds and conducts the Fisk Jazz Ensemble. Nash’s works are featured on 11 compact discs, appearing on Albany, Centaur and Citadel Records labels.

    In using the performer’s desired theme, Nash discovered nearly 1,000 songs dedicated to NYC. Many of those were titled after numbered streets, hence Nash’s title A Million Numbered Streets. Nash’s creation employs a medium-fast highly syncopated song-like melody, alluding to a restless and busy NYC street.

  • Gospel Giallo

    Norberto Oldrini

    Norberto Oldrini (Milan, Italy, 1968) - Bio Self-taught composer, he also trained with Detlev Glanert. His music has been performed in Italy, USA, UK, China, Hungary, Germany, Yugoslavia, Portugal, Romania, Libya, Argentina, meeting dance, poetry, improvisation, cartoons, theater. RNCM Symphony Orchestra, Roland Böer, Algoritmo Ensemble, Minguet Quartett, Guido Arbonelli, are the most important performers of his works.

    In Italian "giallo" (yellow) is a mistery-film, a detective-story that I imagine setted in New York City. This song might look like a Gospel song with a "giallo" mood, a simple, winding theme that goes away and back, and might also freely suggest to the listener any kind of (or no) accompaniment.

  • Intersection

    Nicholas O'Neill

    Nicholas O'Neill is an award-winning English composer whose output includes works for orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal and instrumental forces. Living and working in London, he is Composer-in-Residence and Chorus Master to the UK Parliament Choir, and, by night, keyboardist with acclaimed rock band JEBO.

    Intersection is an attempt to convey, within the span of a single minute, some of the frenetic energy and bustle of an intersection in New York. Sometimes this energy is merely potential but at other times it bursts out - something is always moving or ready to move.

  • Zip Codes 100-116

    Naftali Schindler

    Naftali Schindler got an MMA degree at Yale. In his music, he likes to synthesize musical traditions from around the world. He lives in the Judean Hills in Israel, among goats and vineyards. His music has been played by various entities in many places, and he won some prizes.

    The zip codes in New York City begin with the digits 100-104, 110-114, and 116. The piece turns these digits into notes divided according to boroughs.

  • Penn Station

    Michael Maiorana

    José Jesus de Azevedo Souza studied in England at the Purcell School with a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and later studied at the Trinity College of Music and University of Sheffield. He has since composed a considerable amount of music, some of which has been performed.

    Having been in New York City some years back, one of my memories is of Penn Station. This diffuse piece for oboist Robert Botti depicts the frenetic energies found there.

  • Carriage Ride in Central Park

    Samuel Stokes

    Dr. Samuel Stokes is the music composition instructor at Northwestern State University of Louisiana. He has recently had compositions premiered by the LSU Symphony, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Shannon Roberts, Yumi Suehiro, Thomas Piercy, Vilian Ivantchev, Viola Yip, and Maksim Velichkin.

    "Carriage Ride in Central Park" is an homage to the composer's first trip to NYC with his wife after getting married, taking a carriage ride through the Central Park and talking about the future.

  • Per un oboe

    Luca Vanneschi

    Luca Vanneschi’s music was awarded prizes in more than twenty International competitions and it has been performed by some of the more qualified musicians all over the world. Hans Werner Henze said about his music: “… it is an intelligent, non conformist, elegant and full of grace music.”

    In Per un oboe the sonorous material, released from any grammatical rule, concentrates, disperses, and develops, giving rise to a mass of unforeseeable shapes, sometimes firm, sometimes vanishing. So the set up of the composition creates a space, a dimension with no time and with no subjective or evocative reference.

  • Slide in Central Park

    Jean-Pierre Vial

    Jean-Pierre Vial, French, born in 1946, former software designer. At an early age, he learned the piano, the organ, and composed several pieces for both instruments. Over the last two years, various soloists and small ensembles have performed his music in France, Italy, Israel, UK and in the USA.

    This piece is inspired by the poignant, wan and livid colors in William Glackens' painting Central Park in Winter, with children sliding in the park. The painting is part of the Met collection.

  • Sunrise Over New York

    Blair Whittington

    Blair Whittington is a Los Angeles based composer who concentrates mainly on chamber and orchestral music. He studied composition with Byong-kon Kim and has worked for 19 years as music librarian at the Brand Library & Art Center in Glendale, California.

    The topic of New York made me think of being so excited about visiting Manhattan that I slept very little and spent much time exploring. This piece is a musical depiction of the early morning sunrise and the interesting shadows over the skyscrapers and Central Park.