Robin Engleman

Robin Engleman was the principal percussionist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and a percussion faculty member at several colleges and universities. He was also a member of the percussion ensemble Nexus with whom he was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame.

Biography[]

Born in Maryland in 1937, Engleman studied percussion and composition at Ithaca College in New York.^[1] He worked as a percussionist in the North Carolina Symphony, the , the Louisville Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, and the Rochester Philharmonic.^[2] From 1967 to 1968 he taught percussion at Ithaca College.^[3] In 1968 Engleman became the principle percussionist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa.^[2] In 1971 he helped found a percussion ensemble called Nexus that would continue to play concerts with major orchestras in Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North America until 2008.^[4] Nexus, along with all the founding members, was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame ^[5] in 1999, and also won other awards including the 1997 Banff Center for the Arts National Award and the 1989 Toronto Arts Award.^[6] In 1972 Engleman began teaching percussion at York University in Toronto.^[7] In the 1980s and 1990s Engleman was the principle percussionist for the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra,^[2] and he later played with the New Music Concerts of Toronto.^[8] Engleman also spent time as a faculty member at the Eastman School of Music and was an adjunct professor of music at the University of Toronto.^[1] Among his numerous awards was the Banff School's Donald Cameron Award.^[9] Engleman died in 2016 at the age of 78.

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