WHO AM I ANYWAY?
Robert Froehner is a Dallas-Fort Worth musician specializing in two very unusual musical instruments--the musical saw and the theremin. A native Texan raised in the Texas Panhandle, he was instructed in piano, organ, clarinet, and bassoon as a youth. He was self-taught on the musical saw, which he began playing seriously in 1987. Although his saws range in length from his 16-inch "piccolo saw" to his 36-inch "bass saw," his two main instruments are ordinary Craftsman® hardware-store models. Robert's sawplaying has received First Place awards at the Disneyland International Saw Festival in Anaheim, CA, as well as the International Musical Saw Competition at Santa Cruz on two occasions. In addition, Robert has appeared as a saw soloist with the Boston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Dallas Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Nashville Symphony, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the United States Coast Guard Band, the Texas Wind Symphony, the East Texas Symphony Orchestra (Tyler), the New Haven (CT) Civic Orchestra, and other ensembles. Robert's music has been heard on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and his performance with the Nashville Symphony and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet has been featured on NPR's Performance Today. Robert can soon be heard in a new live recording of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto, featuring Jean-Yves Thibaudet with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, scheduled for release by the Decca Classics label in early 2025. Robert has also been a featured performer at the Texas Folklife Festival in San Antonio, Main Street Arts Festival in Fort Worth, Taste of Dallas, Six Flags Over Texas, and Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. He has recorded for television and film for such clients as Disney, the Texas Department of Commerce Tourism Division's national TV/radio campaign, Molson Golden (Miller Brewing Co.), and the independent films Bingo City and Flightless Birds. Robert is also a classical thereminist. The theremin has historically been a rare and very difficult instrument to master. It was in fact the world's first electronic musical instrument when invented in 1919 by Lev Termen, a Russian physicist and spy. It is the only musical instrument that is played without being touched--using aerial fingering through two electromagnetic fields--one for volume, one for pitch. Robert has been a featured thereminist with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra on multiple occasions, the Houston Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the United States Coast Guard Band, the Texas Wind Symphony, the Metropolitan Winds of Dallas, the New Haven Civic Orchestra, and other ensembles. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and UT Southwestern Medical School at Dallas, he resides in Grand Prairie, Texas.
robertf [at] theremin-saw.com
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