WALTER ROBINSON

Walter conceptualized ONE and is the writer, co-composer, and co-lyricist. He has collaborated with extraordinarily talented young hip-hop MCs, poets and world-class hip-hop choreographers. Disney Theatrical’s veteran director, Keith Batten, assisted Robinson with the script. Robinson was awarded grants from Stephen Spielberg through his Righteous Person’s Foundation, and from Jeffrey Katzenberg, through his personal foundation, that funded ONE developmental performances in Chicago, Martha’s Vineyard, and New York City.

Walter Robinson is best recognized for his classic song “Harriet Tubman” which has become an American Classic and is sung by children internationally.

A native of Philadelphia, Walter Robinson’s early music education was enriched by the mentorship of world-renowned, innovative artists who were to leave a lasting impression on his writing. These mentors, widely diverse, included the late E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, who wrote the lyrics to “Over The Rainbow.” Harburg told the then teenage Robinson, ‘ “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was the greatest song ever written’ and encouraged him to tap the deep musical legacy of American Slavery. As a young high school jazz bassist, Robinson was invited by John Coltrane to “sit in” in with him in New York at the Five Spot. At the time Robinson studied bass with Gary Peacock and Jimmy Garrison. His teenage education also included another gem: a rare one-on-one harmony session with jazz giant, pianist Bill Evans.

Robinson’s twenties began with the opportunity to play bass for James Taylor at the Newport Folk Festival as an acoustic duo, followed by a long stint with Livingston Taylor, both singer-song writers influencing his music. Later, James Taylor asked Robinson if he could produce Robinson’s, “Harriet Tubman” for his sister Kate’s album. This unique recording, which used James, Miles Davis bassist Ron Carter, and Chicago’s famed Jessy Dixon Gospel Singers, forever initialized “Harriet Tubman” to an international legacy, embraced by children worldwide.

Amid the likes of James Taylor, the blues legend, Mississippi John Hurt, and a young Lionel Ritchie dropping in to practice at his Martha’s Vineyard home, Robinson’s life took an unexpected spiritual direction away from pop performing, when he co-founded a 12-step recovery program. He then embarked on a career as a gospel organist-composer in a small Black urban Pentecostal church, playing for services and writing for and directing the choir. The musical and spiritual wealth there uniquely complemented his BA in music at Temple University and his graduate program in composition at the New England Conservatory of Music.

During this gospel music focus, Robinson was Composer-In-Residence at the internationally known W. E. B. Dubois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University for eight years. There he wrote the book, music, and lyrics to a gospel folk opera entitled Look What A Wonder Jesus Has Done, based on the Denmark Vesey Slave Conspiracy of 1822, a slave revolt plotted from a Black church in Charleston, SC. This period piece about a heroic ex-slave, received over 21 grants and prizes. These included coveted grants from the National Endowment of The Arts Composer-Librettist Program and from the late Leonard Bernstein, who also mentored the work. Robinson also took research trips to the Georgia Sea Islands where he established a strong relationship with singer Bessie Jones, an American folk icon, and repository of tunes passed down to her by oral tradition from slavery.

Look What A Wonder…was featured in TIME magazine and had a national concert tour to Cleveland, Memphis, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Excerpts from the work were performed for Nelson Mandela and President Clinton. Look What A Wonder…was produced as a full production in New York, at St. Clements Theater in 2007 by the New York Music Theater Festival. It was one of 16 new works selected by jury from over 200 international applications.

While at Harvard, Robinson was one of 15 out of 500 applicants chosen to be in Spike Lee’s advanced screenplay writing class. There, Robinson completed a screenplay on an obscure Dumas novel, entitled “The Rose of The Black River.”

Robinson was a winner of the highly competitive Meet The Composer Residency Award, a grant that funded him for three consecutive years to compose whatever he wished and is one of the largest US grants available directly to composers. Robinson composed and wrote lyrics for a gospel narrated concert program entitled “MOSES” which featured “The Ten Commandments,” later performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra and the 150-voice Tanglewood Festival Chorus at Symphony Hall, Boston. The Boston premiere of “MOSES” featured a cast of 200 performers and sold out performances at the Cutler Majestic Theater. Bob and Myra Kraft, owners of the New England Patriots, funded a performance of MOSES excerpts at the Jewish General Assembly in Chicago, also flying Yemin Orde, an Ethiopian Children’s Choir from Israel to sing Robinson’s songs with the super-hot Chicago gospel children’s choir, “The Soul Children.” Later, MOSES excerpts were performed in New York at Congregation Rodeph Shalom and at The Museum of Jewish Heritage. Walter Robinson and “MOSES” were featured in a Boston Sunday Globe front-page article, The New York Times and in American Theater Magazine.

Robinson was commissioned and composed a chamber orchestra choral work for the grand opening of the Mary Baker Eddy Library, entitled “The Time For Thinkers Has Come.” He was then appointed to a three-year Artist-In-Residency at the Library. Over the residency Robinson began to conceive ONE as a hip-hop dance musical. Through the Library, he was introduced to actor, Val Kilmer, who helped him to further conceptualize ONE by recording experimental voice-over narrations. Kilmer personally introduced Robinson to Jeffery Katzenberg who also supported ONE.

During the MBE Library residency, Robinson mentored a Boston hip-hop dance crew called “Status Quo.” Status Quo competed nationally against over 300 hip-hop crews to be featured in the final nine on Randy Jackson’s America’s Best Dance Crew (ABDC) MTV reality show. There they finished second. Robinson met with Randy Jackson, rapper, ABCD judge, Lil Moma, and Russell Simmons about potential support for ONE. Robinson consulted with Mos Def for ONE in Hawaii.

Robinson is presently developing dance portions of ONE with members of the Philippine All Stars (winners of the 2008 International Hip Hop Dance Competition in Vegas) and with Joseph Tadipa, choreographer/dancer for Amplified Hip Hop, winners of the 2009 World Battle Grounds Hip Hop Dance Championship.

Walter Robinson’s vision is that the launch of ONE will have an Asian production with a Philippine cast and New York production with an America cast, followed by a ONE movie.