(SOUTH ORANGE, NJ) -- While many performers let their art do the talking, Steinway artist and composer Robin Spielberg doesn’t mind sharing, even baring, her soul to her audiences. And while her story – and new memoir Naked on the Bench: My Adventures in Pianoland – is very much about her life and livelihood at the piano, it is also indelibly intertwined with health and the healing power of music. Spielberg will be performing an evening of solo piano at the South Orange Performing Arts Center on Saturday, April 11th at 8PM.
Her SOPAC concert is part of a 20-city tour in which she shares her talents at the piano and insightful humor from the piano bench in support of her 17th CD and newest recording, Another Time, Another Place, being released nation-wide in April. Robin, a native of Maplewood, has sold over a million recordings and digital downloads since her debut album of original piano solos, Heal of the Hand. She has over 54 million listeners on Pandora, the internet’s largest radio station. Robin has toured throughout the United States and South Korea where she is a bonafide “piano star.” Her music has been featured in film, television and appears on over forty CD compilations throughout the world.
Originally harboring dreams of Broadway, Spielberg graduated with high honors and a BFA from New York University. For ten years, she pounded the pavement as an actor, becoming a founding member of the Tony-award winning Atlantic Theater Company, acting in dozens of plays off-Broadway and at Lincoln Center. She landed a record deal for her piano solos in the mid-nineties and her career as a concert artist soared. She never looked back. In 1996 Steinway named her to the prestigious roster of STEINWAY ARTISTS.
Since then, she has traveled the world over as a pianist and composer, building an enviable concert career. “Robin has such a personal and expressive way of playing, and her story-telling about the origins of the music makes the pieces come alive,” writes Wind & Wire Magazine.
Her memoir recently won the GOLD MEDAL in the non-fiction/entertainment category in the 2014 Reader’s Choice International Book Contest and has been featured on numerous NPR stations and in book clubs nationwide. The book demystifies life on the concert trail with perspectives realistic and comedic. It also touches on the healing power of music via a very personal shared narrative.
Spielberg began researching the field of music therapy when her daughter, now 16, was born 16 weeks early and was not expected to walk, talk, see, hear or speak. “I asked permission from the [NICU] nurses if we could play some music by my daughter’s incubator…and over a period of time that the music was playing, they noticed that my daughter’s vitals improved,” she shares. Robin’s TEDx Talk on music and healing can be found on her web site.
As time went on, her daughter thrived and so did Spielberg’s career and interest in the transformative power of music. Currently, Spielberg is known worldwide for her sensitive compositions and “comforting piano artistry.” Although Carnegie Hall has welcomed her three times, she chooses to play wherever she can make “connections.”
"At this point in my career, I have discovered that some of my greatest successes have come 'under the radar,' in places that I would least expect them. I think it is all about making connections,” says Robin. She performs on college campuses and in hospitals, nursing homes, retirement centers, jails, juvenile delinquent centers and for young people with special needs. “I’ll play wherever they will have me,” she says. “There are a lot of ways to connect, and I’m interested in all of them.”
Spielberg’s South Orange Performing Arts Center performance on April 11th is for anyone who wishes to be entertained or inspired, comforted or consoled, moved or transported by the talent of world renown pianist Robin Spielberg, an artist adept at healing with her hands. For tickets visit www.sopacnow.org or call 973-313-2787. Tickets are $25-$35 and can be purchased at www.SOPACnow.org or by calling the box office at (973) 313-2787.
