Robert Voisey - Life

Life

Beginning his college career as a double-major in computer science and mathematics and the son of two accountants, Voisey was an unlikely student of classical composition. He met his first composition teacher, Oded Zehavi, while taking a composition class for non-majors at Stony Brook University. Zehavi then invited him to join his fledgling composition program at Tel-Hai Academic College in the Upper Galilee of Israel. Accepting the invitation, Voisey was soon heard on Kol Yisrael Israel Radio and received his first contemporary performances at the College.

Voisey went on to study music in the Master's Program at Brooklyn College with composers Noah Creshevsky and George Brunner. Using his voice as a primary instrument, Voisey applied electronic techniques of sampling, digital processing and multi-track layering to his own work. Robert Voisey belonged to the Brooklyn College Electro-Acoustic Ensemble where his work was featured on three CDs and several concerts at the International Electroacoustic Festivals as well as composer concerts produced by the music department.

He left the program at Brooklyn College to strike out on his own as a composer with an entrepreneurial spirit. He founded Vox Novus in 2000 and created the American Composers Timeline. In 2001 he founded and created a chamber concerts called the Composer's Voice Concert Series. This series has been housed in a range of venues in New York City including South Oxford Space in Brooklyn, The Gershwin Hotel, Under St. Mark’s Theater, Collective: Unconscious, Christ St. Stephen’s Church, and most recently found its home at Jan Hus Church. In 2002, Robert Voisey became the vice President of the Living Music Foundation.

Voisey first came up with the idea for 60x60 in 2002, put out a call, and produced the premier of 60x60 in 2003 at Under St. Mark’s Theater. Over a decade Robert Voisey has brought the 60x60 project to hundreds of venues across the globe including New York City's World Financial Center Winter Garden Atrium, Stratford Circus, the Sheldon for the American Art Experience in St. Louis, In 2008, he created a short live experimental video screening series called XMV which was presented at Collective: Unconscious. And in 2009, he created the Fifteen Minutes of Fame project. In 2011 Voisey became the Organizational Advancement Director for the Electronic Music Midwest festival.

As a performer, Voisey has sung and performed all over the world including venues such as the Tank, Gallery MC, Cornelia Street Cafe, Roulette Composers Concordance Festival at Drom, Westbeth Music Festival International Electroacoustic Music Festival at Brooklyn College Composer's Voice Concert Series in New York City; Electronic Music Midwest festival in Kansas City, Kansas and Romeoville, Illinois; as well as, touring in the Kibbutzim choir in Israel.

Robert Voisey is also a member of the ~chromatik_d_zabu.tmp (~CDZ) under the pseudonym, "Vox." ~CDZabu is a non-profit organization where its members collaborate online in order to create electronic music available on the World Wide Web.

Robert Voisey and David Morneau also make up the electronic music duo Elevator Machine Room also known as EMR.

Robert Voisey has also been featured and interviewed on No Extra Notes with Richard Zarou, Noizepunk & Das Krooner show #21 and Kalvos & Damian New Music Bazaar #454 and Arts & Answers on WKCR FM NY.