Night Music was commissioned by the Friday Morning Music Club of Washington, D.C., as a required work for the Third Triennial Johansen International Competition for Young String Players.
Composer Biography
Robert Gibson's identity as a composer is deeply connected to his experience as a performer, with his compositional impulses intertwined with creating sound on an instrument.
Composer Biography
Robert Gibson was attracted to the double bass at age fifteen by the warmth, depth, richness, long resonance, and unusual intensity of its high register, inspired by jazz bassists like Eugene Wright and Ron Carter.
Compositional Technique
Night Music was designed to be suitable for performance on violin, viola, or violoncello without instrument-specific editing, allowing its unique timbral qualities to be heard anew with each instrument.
Composition History
Most of Robert Gibson's music is written for colleagues and friends, whose musical voices and personalities inform his creative work.
Compositional Technique
The title of Robert Gibson's double bass quartet, Soundings, refers to the nautical term for measuring water depth, connecting to the double bass as the 'deepest' sounding string instrument.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Composer Robert Gibson's music is often guided by imagery and emotion from poems, viewing composition as an act of translation between arts.
