Robert Owens, composer

Robert Lee Owens has had simultaneous careers as a concert pianist, vocal accompanist, composer, and stage and television actor; and for most of his adult life, he has been an American expatriate in Europe, principally in Munich, Germany, where he has lived for more than 30 years.

Owens was born in 1925 in Denison, Texas. When he was two years old, his family moved to Berkeley, California. His mother, Alpharetta Helm, a noted pianist, began to teach him to play the piano when he was four and continued for four years until she was hospitalized for tuberculosis. She died in 1937. Owens then studied privately with Genevieve Longrus, the music teacher at Williard Junior High School, and on enrollment in Berkeley High School, he studied music theory with Dora O’Neill, who recognized his outstanding talent. He had already begun to compose short piano pieces, and at the age of 15, he wrote a piano concerto and was the soloist in its premiere with the Berkeley Young People’s Symphony Orchestra. About that time, Owens composed his first songs, of which Three Songs for Soprano, op. 22, is extant. While in high school, he studied piano with Dr. Alexander Raab, a Viennese immigrant who enjoyed esteem as one of the best piano teachers on the West Coast.

After graduating at the age of 16 from Berkeley High School in 1941, Owens relocated to San Francisco to work for the Civil Service Commission. He then served as a cadet in the Army Air Corps in Tuskeegee, Alabama, and Stuttgart, Arkansas. While enlisted, Owens continued to hone his skills as a musician, presenting several concerts and continuing to compose songs.

After his stint in the military, Owens enrolled at the Ecole Normale de Musique to study under Jules Genty and Alfred Cortot. He received his Diplome de Perfection in piano in 1950. He debuted as a concert pianist in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1952, and continued his studies with Professor Grete Hinterhofer at the Vienna Academy of Music. By 1957, he had given concerts in Denmark and in Austria.

Returning to the United States in 1957, Owens taught music at Georgia’s Albany State College for two years. He also began rigorously to devote more time to composing. Owens wrote the song cycle Silver Rain for the chairman of the music department at Albany State. A turning point in his life occurred when he met Harlem Renaissance write and poet Langston Hughes, who gave him a short volume of poems entitled Fields of Wonder, along with the wish that he “see what he could do with them” in setting the texts to music.

In 1959, Owens returned to Europe, this time settling in Hamburg, Germany. While there he continued composing and accompanying singers, many of whom sang his compositions. During his time in Hamburg, Owens composed Heart on the Wall, five songs for soprano and piano on poems by Langston Hughes, for American soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs, who performed them in that city. His song cycle Tearless, also on poems by Hughes, for baritone and piano, was performed by Lawrence Winters at the Hamburger Staatsoper.

To increase his financial security, Owens began a successful career as a stage and television actor and frequently performed his piano works on the radio. While in Hamburg, he published his first piano compositions and wrote his first opera, Kultur! Kultur! In 1962, Ownes relocated to Munich, Germany, whe he continues to reside. Kultur! Kultur! was premiered at the Ulmer Theater-Neubau in Ulm, Germany, on February 10, 1970. Owens holds the distinction of being the sole American to have had a work performed there.

As a coach, Owens has worked on two productions of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in Switzerland and has directed Eugene Ionesco’s the Lesson and James Saunder’s The Neighbors in Germany.

Although Owens visits the United States infrequently, in 1978 he returned as artist-in-residence to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where his vocal compositions were recorded in a program sponsored by faculty and students and featuring Owens as accompanist. In 1979, he also briefly visited the University of Wisconsin at River Falls and, in 1992, Texas Southern University in Houston, as an artist-in-residence.

Since establishing residence in Munich, Owens has appeared on several renowned stages in Germany, is a well-known television actor, accompanies many concerts of his art songs, and continues to be in strong demand at major European theaters. Among the many American singers with whom he has worked in Munich are Felicia Weathers, Donnie Ray Albert, and Thomas Carey.

Two of Owens’ songs from his cycle Mortal Storm, op. 29, are represented in Willis Patterson’s Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers. The songs, “Faithful One” and “Genius Child,” use tonal harmonies embellished by sevenths and highly textured modulations that artfully suspend the tonic. Rich chords and repetitious yet interesting rhythmic nuances sustain pure vocal lines throughout these two songs.

Owens’ piano works include “Kalifornische Sonata fur Klavier,” op. 6 and Carnival Klavierstucke, op. 7. Works published by the Orlando-Musikverlag in Munich are Border Line, op. 24, for baritone and piano; Desire, for tenor and piano; Heart on the Wall, five songs for soprano and piano; Drei Lieder, op. 47, for high voice; Four Motivations, op. 21, for medium voice and piano; Silver Rain, op. 11, for tenor and piano; Stanzas for Music, for tenor and piano; Tearless, op. 9, for baritone and piano, and three Songs for High Voice and Piano. Owens’ Fields of Wonder and Heart on the Wall have been scored for voice and orchestra.

Maya C. Gibson
The International Dictionary of Black Composers