Robert Isaacs, conductor
Robert Isaacs balances a busy career of singing, conducting, and teaching throughout the New York area. He designed and ran the choral program at the Manhattan School of Music for eight years; more recently, he served as director of choral activities at Princeton University. Robert has worked as a guest conductor with numerous ensembles, including in recent months the acclaimed chamber choir Cerddorion, the new professional ensemble TENET, and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. He made his Carnegie Hall conducting debut with the Argento New Music Project.
Robert has served on the voice faculties of the City University of New York and the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. A countertenor, he has appeared as a guest soloist with Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue, Piffaro, Parthenia, Musica Sacra, Bachworks, Harmonium, the Gotham City Baroque Orchestra, the Stamford Symphony, the Vox Vocal Ensemble, the Pro Arte Singers, the Greenwich Village Singers, the Metropolitan Greek Chorale,the Westchester Oratorio Society, the St. Endellion Festival Chorus and the Wells Oratorio Society. In addition to his solo work, Robert is an enthusiastic advocate for ensemble music, and has enjoyed singing and recording with the New York Collegium, the Virgin Consort, Early Music New York, Voices of Ascension, the St. Ignatius Choir, the Clarion Music Society, the American Radio Choir, the Woodley Ensemble, Saint Thomas Church in New York, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and the Church of the Advent in Boston. He has collaborated at Carnegie Hall with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, accompanied the Mark Morris Dance Group on tour in Russia, and explored extended vocal techniques with Toby Twining Music. Robert was a founding member of the Alba Quintet, the Tiffany Consort, Angelus, and Equal Voices, and has appeared twice in Jonathan Miller’s fully staged St. Matthew Passion at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2006.
Robert graduated with high honors from Harvard University, where he designed his own major in choral music. He supported himself for a while as a juggler and unicyclist on the streets of San Francisco, and then spent a year as a Trustman Fellow, researching choral rehearsal psychology throughout England and Scandinavia. In 2002, Robert earned an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University; he has published articles on travel, politics, and music in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and Church Music Quarterly. His musical arrangements are published by the Royal School of Church Music.