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The American baritone and music pedagogue, Clayne Robison, compled his Juris Doctor degree at Harvard Law School. Durinbg his law studies, he spent his evenings singing with the Boston Opera Group and the Harvard Glee Club. After subsequently spending several years as a lawyer and management consultant in San Francisco he decided to yield to the more creative side of his nature, completing an additional bachelor's degree in voice at Brigham Young University (BYU), and a Master's Degree in orchestral conducting and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in opera production at the University of Washington.
Clayne Robison performs regularly with leading musical organizations throughout the USA, including many performances with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Recently the Public Broadcasting System released his performance of Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Calvin Oratorio Society, and he also performed Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in their respective Russian home venues. Critics have described Robison's performances as "authoritative, filled with conviction," "projecting inner strength," "he seems to sing from the bottom of his soul," "a labor of love." His singing has been heard to be "vocally resplendent," "clear, large, rich, vital warm," "pealed out like a big black bell."
In 1973 Clayne Robison joined the Brigham Young University Music faculty where he served for more than 20 years as Director of Opera. He was in charge of BYU's performance of Boris Godunov with Jerome Hines singing the lead at BYU in 1975. Other assignments while at BYU have included Oratorio Choir Conductor, Vocal Area Head and Associate Director of the Honors Program. He has conducted vocal workshops at music conservatories across the world from Australia to Russia. His 25-minute demonstration video "10-Fold Teacher Efficiency Through Vocal Boot Camps" was featured at both the MTNA and NATS conventions in 2000. His frequent publications in the Journal of Singing include the lead article in its September/October 2001 issue: "Beautiful Singing: What It Is and How To Do It, implications of the new interactivity (chaos) paradigm in physics" which was also the subject of his lecture at the 2001 International Congress of Voice Teachers in Helsinki in August. In the last five years of Metropolitan Opera Auditions eight of his students have been cited as district winners, five have advanced to the regional level and last year one of them, his daughter Lindsay Robison-Killian, was a Grand National winner.
Clayne Robison's wife Vivien is also a musician who has been an adjunct professor at BYU and a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Robison is a Latter-day Saint. Since retiring from BYU in 2006 he has served a mission with his wife for the LDS Church in Austria and Germany. As of 2010 Clayne and his wife Vivien were members of the Nauvoo University faculty.
Clayne Robison wrote the book Beautiful Singing: mind warp moments. Currently available compact disc releases include his performance of the role of Christ in The Redeemer by Robert Cundick on the Heritage Series by Tantara, the bass roles in the Verdi Requiem and Haydn Creation with the Will Kesling Chorale and the role of Noah in The Ark by Michael McClean. His two collections of 34 new sacred art songs by various composers, “Sabbath Song I” and “Sabbath Song II”, in med hi and med lo keys with minus track compact disk. Robison composed a piece of music that was used for the dedication services of the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden in Jerusalem. |
