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Composers Bureau
Robert Wykes
Biography
Wykes’ broad range of experience as a composer, performer and teacher are evident in his compositions which include symphonic and chamber music, documentary film scores and works for band, chorus, theater, modern dance, small ensemble and solo instrument. His versatility was recognized by Frank Peters, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who observed that “Wykes, because he can do so many things well, is St. Louis’ most sought-after composer.”
Wykes, himself says, “However much the surface characteristics of my music might change, its substance has been and will remain my subjective, non-verbal thoughts about sound, silence and a myriad of personal experiences wrestled into an objective, self-sufficient work – a composition. This process of making my subjective thoughts into a verifiable object is the means by which I can best understand music, which remains for me one of humankind’s most enchanting mysteries.”
His orchestral works have received critical acclaim:
- Toward Time’s Receding “ (1972)
- The interest of the piece comes from the dreamy, almost imperceptible way things keep happening in Wykes’ orchestral kaleidoscope…One sound leads to another in a curiously natural way that is more easily explained by Wykes’ well-proven gift for intelligent, humane musical language than by a description of his new technical devices.
Frank Peters, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- [This piece] uses the full modern orchestra expressively with many haunting lyrical passages and outbursts of fluid rhythm, fascinating in itself. One felt structure under the silvery incense, showered by the piano and high-pitched percussion, including two glockenspiels and vibraphone.
James Felton, (Philadelphia) Evening Bulletin, 1976
- Adequate Earth (1976)
- The piece revolves around [Donald Finkel’s] poem so attentively that it appears to be a musical paragon…the effect of voices heard from here and there, then and now, moved Wykes towards his elaborate distribution of vocal parts among right, left and middle choruses and three soloists. Fidelity to the flow of speech likewise led him to lay out a rhythmic structure of great complexity. The musical treatment…was ingenious, propulsive, finely crafted and free of posturing.
Frank Peters, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- A Lyric Symphony (1980); Friedheim Award, Honorable Mention
- It states its terms directly at the outset…and then…builds a well-balanced structure on what is essentially a very simple melodic idea. It’s much like the classical music of the late 18 th century in that, although it’s filled with pleasant little surprises, the expectations it stirs up are almost always fulfilled.
James Wierzbieki, St. Louis Globe-Democrat
- Resonances (1971)
- …two movements that simply exploit beautiful sounds with all the sophistication that truly original talent can so effortlessly muster.
Gabriel Frontrier, Long Island Press
- the best part of the program. (Performance; Yale University Philharmonia, 1988)
New Haven Connecticut Gazette
Performances of the orchestral works have been by -
- The Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras (Conductor; Slatkin)
- The St. Louis Symphony (de Carvalho, Susskind, Slatkin and Zimmerman)
- The National Orchestra of Brazil and the Pro Arte Symphony (de Carvalho)
- The Denver Symphony (Susskind)
- University orchestras at Chicago, Illinois, Indiana, Yale, Colgate and Washington University in St. Louis.
Among the works in Wykes’ catalog are scores for a number of distinguished films produced by the late Charles Guggenheim, which are preserved in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science Collection and shown in the National Archives Documentary Theater.
- Children Without (1964); Oscar nomination.
- Monument to the Dream (1968); Venice Film Festival Mercuro d’ Oro.
- Robert Kennedy Remembered (1969); Oscar and Cindy awards.
- The Journey of Lyndon Johnson (1974) produced for the Johnson Library in Austin, Texas; San Francisco International Film Festival Prize and the Columbia Festival Christopher Award.
- The Eye Of Jefferson (1977) produced for the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Cine Golden Eagle Award and the Chicago Film Festival Silver Plaque.
- John F. Kennedy: 1917 – 1963 (1977) produced for the Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts; Cine Golden Eagle Award.
Commissions for his works have come from numerous organizations including -
- The Paderewski Foundation of Boston
- Mark Twain Bancshares Inc. of St. Louis
- Film producer Charles Guggenheim
- Conductor Eleazar de Carvalho
- The New Music Circle of St. Louis
- Washington and Colgate Universities
- The University of Chicago
- The St. Louis Symphony
- The National Endowment for the Arts
- The Loretto-Hilton Theater.
Wykes (b. 1926 in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania) began his early music training at age nine as a flutist. As a teenager, he won a Pittsburgh Young Artist’s Audition and appeared with the Pittsburgh Little Symphony as flute soloist. After military service in WWII as a combat infantryman, he attended the Eastman School of Music and completed a Master’s Degree in Music Theory. He taught at Bowling Green State University from 1950 – 1952 and played flute with the Toledo (Ohio) Symphony. He studied and taught at the University of Illinois in Urbana from 1952 –1955 and earned a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree there in 1955.
He was appointed to the music faculty of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1955 and was awarded full professorship in 1965; he received an Alumni Distinguished Faculty Award in 1976. He played flute with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 1963 – 1967 and with the Studio for New Music from 1966 – 1969
Since Wykes’ retirement from teaching in 1988, he was appointed a composer-in-residence at the Djerassi Foundation in Woodside, California in 1989. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Computer Center for Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California in 1991. He continues to compose; his music is published by Fallen Leaf Press, Berkeley, California.
Further Information
Contact Information
E-mail: rwykes@ix.netcom.com
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