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Michael Robbins

Performs with Band from Bossa Nova – Bossa and Deluxe Interpretations of music from the song book. Educator - violin, viola, guitar

About Me

Michael Robbins could be called musically multilingual. Robbins' playing is frequently flavored by any of the styles that he has mastered, Semitic to ascetic, classical or folksicle, swinging Jazz to the high lonely sound of the fiddler at dusk. Michael has traveled the planet as a classical musician, performing in the US, UK, China and Japan, and played in several regional orchestras, including The Ocean City Pops Orchestra, Pottstown Symphony, Bridgeton Symphony and the East Texas Symphony. While a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas TX, USA, Robbins performed frequently with Rhett Miller; lately of the pop band Old 97's. Coffeehouse settings like that of Dave's Art Pawn Shop in East Dallas would be revisited by Robbins in force during his entry into the heart of the Philadelphia folk music scene. Since his musical coming of age as a non-classical musician in the Philadelphia metropolitan area as a member of The Bala Hounds: a highly creative and non-dogmatic folk music group, Robbins has performed in a couple of Irish/ Celtic bands: The Ellen Tepper Celtic Trio, Cletus McBride & Co., various Jazz groups, ranging from the silk and swing vocalise of Jazz Garden to the avant garde Jazz of Adelante. Add the bipolar Klezmer of Ofra Sharon-Afir's Freilech Minyan and you have some picture of the musical places he has gone. Michael performed from 1995 through 1998 with the Modern Jazz Group “Adelante”. Adelante performed original compositions by band leader and apex drummer Jody Janetta, Michael and the other members of the group and fresh arrangements of other established Jazz artists. Having spent two years in Vineland: the rural center of South Jersey, and two years playing by the sea in Ocean City, NJ; Michael Robbins now resides in North Jersey, within striking distance of NYC. Through the turn of the millenium Michael worked on projects and gigs with a band called seedensol which included singer songwriter Robert Oakes and great guitarist Jason Loughlin. The style of seedensol phased through folk into rock and perhaps into a music that takes one to another country in the east. At the beginning of the new millennium, Robbins explored the musical territory all around Rio de Janeiro Brazil and beyond with Framework - the Jazz Quartet with Joseph Frame – guitars and others. His focus now includes the Band from Bossa Nova project – violin and guitar play bossa and their own deluxe versions of music from the songbook. Playing Bossa Nova, rock or folk or classical, one can hear in his playing the places Robbins has been, the things he has heard, the violin weaving in how many more colors in the night