Biography

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Updated May 11, 2008

Born in 1975, Robert Rival is a composer of music for chamber ensemble, orchestra and theatre who writes in a contemporary tonal style characterized by drama, clarity and lyricism. The Toronto Star has described his music as "brisk and bounding"; the Ottawa Citizen as "melodic and accessible," "well crafted," "engaging" and "immediately appealing."

Rival's works have been broadcast on CBC radio and performed in Canada, USA, UK, Ireland and France, by ensembles including the Gryphon Trio, Musica Camerata (Montreal), the Ottawa Symphony, the National Academy Orchestra and the Canadian Sinfonietta Chamber Players, in venues and festivals including the National Arts Centre (Canada), Dublin National Concert Hall, Bridewell Theatre (London, UK), Salle Cortot (Paris), Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, NY International Fringe Festival, Redpath Hall (Montreal), Heliconian Hall (Toronto), University of Toronto New Music Festival and Hamilton Place Great Hall. He has been commissioned by Toronto's Talisker Players and by the Ottawa Youth Orchestra, and is an Associate Composer of the CMC.

Rival has a MMus in composition and theory from the University of Ottawa (1998) where he studied with Steven Gellman and an MFA in musical theatre composition from New York University (2002). In 2004 he obtained a diploma from the European American Musical Alliance summer composition program in Paris where he studied with Narcis Bonet, Philip Lasser and Michel Merlet. He has also studied with Malcolm Forsyth and Christos Hatzis. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in composition at the University of Toronto on a full fellowship under the supervision of Alexander Rapoport. For the 2008-09 academic year, he was awarded a Doctoral Fellowship by the federal Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in recognition of his work on the Russian composer Shostakovich.

Rival's chamber music includes a Piano Trio premiered at the 2005 Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival by Denise Djokic, Renée-Paule Gauthier and Peter Longworth, and since broadcast on CBC radio and reprised by the Gryphon Trio, Musica Camerata and the Canadian Sinfonietta Chamber Players. String Trio was performed at the 2004 Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival by Djokic, Gauthier and Steve Larson. The 2006 premiere of his Clarinet Trio was his third consecutive appearance at the Ottawa festival; his fourth was the 2007 world premiere by Melanie Conly and Longworth of selections from Red Moon & Other Songs of War, a song cycle for high voice and piano (currently being arranged for voice and chamber ensemble).

Rival's orchestral works include a 25-minute children's piece Maya the Bee for orchestra and narrator commissioned and premiered by the Ottawa Youth Orchestra. The Great Northern Diver, a symphonic poem about the common loon, was written for the Ottawa Youth Orchestra's 2004 European tour and since performed by the National Academy Orchestra. Overture (1997) has been performed by four orchestras including the Ottawa Symphony (David Currie) and the National Academy (Boris Brott). Red Moonrise over Lac Rhéaume for string orchestra was a finalist in the 2004 Oare International String Orchestra Composing Competition (UK) where it received the Orchestra 2nd Prize and Audience 3rd Prize.

Rival's theatre works include The Overcoat, a one-act musical based on the Gogol story, staged twice in 2002, at the NY International Fringe Festival and the Bridewell Theatre. Other works include Six Pieces for solo piano written for Michael Esch, and Saison des semailles, le soir for a cappella choir on a poem by Victor Hugo.

In addition to composing, Rival is active as a music writer and scholar. He has written program notes for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival, Ottawa Chamber Music Society and the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. His rapidly growing catalogue of notes are also in demand for rental by music presenters across Canada and the United States. He has also published liner notes for the Gryphon Trio's Shostakovich and Schubert CDs on the Analekta label; an article on Gary Kulesha in SOCAN's Words & Music; and a feature on Messiaen for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In October 2006 he read a paper at the Shostakovich 2006: International Centenary Conference in Bristol, UK.

A violinist from the age of four, Rival studied with John Gomez and the late Calvin Sieb, and is an alumnus of both the Ottawa Youth and University of Ottawa orchestras. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Chantal-Andrée Samson, a realist oil painter who also teaches life-drawing at Humber College.

	Ottawa Symphony Orchestra conductor David Currie discusses Overture with Robert Rival during rehearsal at the National Arts Centre. (photo by Peter Lindell)