Chamber Music

Robert Baksa is one of America's most prolific composers with more than 500 works to his credit. He was born in New York City in 1938 but grew up in Tucson, Arizona. Baksa attended the University of Arizona, then returned to New York to live after spending a summer at Tanglewood. Currently he serves as Resident Composer and Coordinator of New Music for the Pleshakov Music Center in Hudson, New York. The Octet for Woodwinds was completed in 1972 and takes its inspiration from the wind serenades of the early classical period. The Quintet for Flute and Strings, written in 1973, was premiered at the National Flute Association Convention. The 1974 Nonet for Winds and Strings was commissioned by the Chamber Music Conference of the East at Bennington, Vermont. It was written to be presented during the period of the composer's tenure as Composer-in-Residence that summer and was later taken up by other chamber ensembles across the country including the Bronx Arts Ensemble, which has premiered and recorded more than a dozen of Baksa's chamber works.