Robert deMaine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert DeMaine
Robert DeMaine, musician.jpg
Background information
Born (1969-12-06) 6 December 1969 (age 51)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
GenresClassical
InstrumentsCello
LabelsNaxos, Chandos, Onyx, Deutsche Grammophon, Capstone, CRI, CBC, DSO, Grotto, Delos, Leaf Music
Associated actsLos Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Ehnes Quartet, Chroma Piano Trio, Hollywood Piano Trio, Marlboro Music School and Festival
Websitewww.robertdemaine.com

Robert DeMaine (born December 6, 1969 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) is an American virtuoso cellist, best known as Principal Cello of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. A deeply admired solo and collaborative artist, he is also regarded as an important teacher.

Biography/early life[]

From a musical family, Robert DeMaine began learning music at age 4 with his eldest sister, Mary, an accomplished cellist. He went on to study with music teachers Lowell Russell, Jane Smith, Kari Caldwell, and Rose Rahal (his piano, solfège, music theory, counterpoint, and composition teacher) in his hometown of Oklahoma City privately and at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music.

DeMaine debuted at age 12 with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, performing Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme. The following year, he met the American cellist and teacher Leonard Rose at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, where Rose invited DeMaine to become his student. DeMaine was accepted for study at the Juilliard School in New York City, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and was also invited to learn privately with Pierre Fournier in Geneva, Switzerland, but his parents made the decision that he should complete his secondary education at home.

After graduating high school — during which he took a nearly two-year hiatus from music studies — on a bet with his best friend, DeMaine entered a national music competition (Naftzger Young Artists Competition in Wichita, Kansas), and won the Grand Prize in the string division. He then received full scholarships to study at the Eastman School of Music and Yale University. Additional studies were undertaken at the Aspen Music Festival, Marlboro Music School and Festival, Meadowmount School of Music, Music Academy of the West, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Gregor Piatigorsky Seminar at the University of Southern California, and briefly at the Kronberg Academy in Germany.

His many teachers and mentors included Steven Doane, Pierre Fournier, Claude Frank, Felix Galimir, Luis Garcia-Renart, Bernard Greenhouse, Lynn Harrell, Richard Kapuscinski, Stephen Kates, Paul Katz, Ronald Leonard, Jerome Lowenthal, Paul O’Dette, Aldo Parisot, Boris Pergamenschikow, Leonard Rose, Mary Lou Rylands, Joseph Silverstein, David Soyer, János Starker, Christel Thielmann, Arthur Winograd, and Zvi Zeitlin.

Competitions[]

The recipient of many significant national and international honors and awards, Robert DeMaine was named the winner of the fifth Irving M. Klein International Competition for Strings in San Francisco,[1] the first cellist to win this important prize.

Musical activities[]

In 2012, Robert DeMaine was named Principal Cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic by Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. DeMaine was Principal Cellist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 2002 to 2012, hired by then-Music Director, Neeme Järvi.[2] While in his early twenties studying at Yale University, DeMaine served as Core Principal Cellist of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, and previously in the section of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, his first professional experience while still a full-time student at Eastman.

DeMaine has been a devoted teacher and coach since the age of 12, having cultivated a small music studio in his parents’ living room, serving a clientele of adolescent beginners and young adults. In his late teens, DeMaine became the teaching assistant to Steven Doane, and later Paul Katz, at the Eastman School of Music. He went on to teach at the Hartford Conservatory from 1993 to 2002, Wayne State University Department of Music in Detroit (2002-2009), University of Michigan (2003-2004), and The Colburn School in Los Angeles (2015-present). DeMaine has also served on the faculties of the National Orchestral Institute (2004-present), Music Academy of the West (2014-17), Montecito Music Festival (2014-present), Audition/Perform Academy in Chichester, United Kingdom (2018-present), and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy (2019-present). He has presented masterclasses at many important music schools worldwide, and was featured artist-faculty at both the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival in Los Angeles (2016), and the Lev Aronson Cello Festival in Dallas (2017).

Robert DeMaine has served as Artistic Director of Metro Detroit’s “Classical Brunch” from 2010 to 2015, and Classical American Homes Chamber Music/Music at Millford (2014-present). He maintains an active solo, chamber music, and recording career around his duties at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

As soloist with orchestra, he has collaborated with many renowned conductors, including Walter Hendl, John Williams, Gustavo Dudamel, Joseph Silverstein, Nicholas McGegan, Leonard Slatkin, Alexander Schneider, Neeme Järvi, Zubin Mehta, Dario Ntaca, Mark Wigglesworth, John Zoltek, Sir Andrew Davis, Roberto Abbado, Luis Herrera de la Fuente, Kypros Markou, Yoav Talmi, Peter Oundjian, Andrew Constantine, Arild Remmereit, Igor Sarmientos, Victor Yampolsky, Jun Märkl, Grant Gershon, Tibor Józef Pusztai, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Emmanuelle Haïm, David Chan, and Scott Yoo.

Robert DeMaine plays on instruments made by Antonio Stradivari, the 'General Kyd, ex-Leo Stern,' Cremona, dating from 1684 (in the collection of the Los Angeles Philharmonic), and Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, Paris, 1841. His bow collection includes examples by François Tourte, Dominique Peccatte, Nicolaus Kittel, and Étienne Pajeot.

Personal life/miscellaneous[]

Robert DeMaine is married to musician Elizabeth Rhodes DeMaine, a Juilliard-trained French horn player, and together they have two children, Paul and Annette. They live in Los Angeles, and also operate a music studio in their second home steps away from Walt Disney Concert Hall in DTLA.

An avid genealogist, DeMaine is of French-Canadian paternal descent (family name originally “DuMaine-Gagnier”) from Québec City and Montréal, with distant roots in Brittany and Normandy, and German-speaking Prussians from Danzig, Pomerania, and Baltic Germans from Königsberg on his mother's side, who settled in Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century.

DeMaine enjoys playing a variety of other stringed instruments, including guitar, bass guitar, and mandolin, as well as piano, clavichord, and harpsichord. He also studied composition, conducting, trumpet, and voice.

He is a life-long Roman Catholic.

Compositions[]

Several distinguished contemporary composers have written large-scale works for DeMaine, including Jeremy Cavaterra (Cello Concerto), Thomas Flaherty (Cello Concerto), Joel Eric Suben (Cello Concerto), and Christopher Theofanidis (“Summer Verses” for Violin and Cello, commissioned by the Seattle Chamber Music Festival for violinist James Ehnes and deMaine).

Robert DeMaine is himself a composer and arranger, having written many works which include two concerti and 12 Études-Caprices.[3]

References[]

  1. ^ "Past Klein Competition Winners". California Music Center. 1990. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  2. ^ "Detroit Symphony Orchestra - Violoncellos". Detroitsymphony.com. Retrieved January 6, 2009.
  3. ^ "2005's Top 10". Palmbeachpost.com. Retrieved January 6, 2009.[permanent dead link]

External links[]

Retrieved from ""