Robert C. Ford

Robert C. Ford

Musicians | Instrument: Poet / spoken word | Location: New York City

Updated: February 14, 2024

Born: August 5

Robert C. Ford, aka Wall $treet Poet, is an American poet and spoken word artist based in New York City. He frequently collaborates with Composers Concordance, a contemporary music organization, and other world class performers for both recorded and live music featuring his words self-narrated or brought to life by accomplished jazz and opera singers.

In 2021 Ford released The Music Between Us, an album of his poetry reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic, cancel culture and other then-current events, set to music by Charles Coleman (Paavo Järvi, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Kristjan Järvi, London Symphony Orchestra), Mark Kostabi (Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusion, Ramones Adios Amigos, Ornette Coleman) and Gene Pritsker (Matrix Resurrections, Joe Zawinul), on Composers Concordance Records/Naxos Distribution. A follow-up album Footprints of Steel, a collaboration with composers/musicians Carli Muñoz (Beach Boys, Eddie Gómez), Gene Pritsker and Jay Rodriguez (Groove Collective, Miles Davis) is expected to be released in the summer of 2024. He also wrote lyrics for Not All Apples Are Blue Color, a 2021 anti-Barbie anthem and video by Take a Pick (Brian DuFord, Milica Paranosic) encouraging people to overcome negative body image, and The Difference Unhappiness, a lyrically solemn but musically upbeat jazz tune on Sound Liberation's 2023 album Better Now, featuring the powerhouse soprano vocals of Adriana Valdés accompanied by Gene Pritsker (guitar), Franz Hackl (trumpet--Outreach Music Festival), and Gerry Brown (drums--Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Stanley Clarke, Return to Forever).

Ford has performed at renown NYC venues such as Birdland Jazz Club, The Bitter End, Chelsea Table + Stage, DROM, Greenwich House, Joe's Pub, Nublu, Pangea, Pianos, Le Poisson Rouge, Queens New Music Festival and Theatre 80 as well as Howland Cultural Center (Beacon, NY), Jazz Club ZWE (Vienna, Austria) and San Diego State University/NWEAMO Festival. In September 2022, he was one of four poets featured at the storied Players Theatre (NYC) with Grammy-award-winning artist Suzanne Vega as part of The [Greenwich] Village Trip Festival.

His poetry set to music has received airplay on jazz and eclectic radio stations including WFMU 91.1 FM (Jersey City, NJ), WPRB 103.3 FM (Princeton, NJ), WRUU 107.5 FM (Savannah, GA) and WMSE 91.7 FM (Milwaukee, WI).

He is a member of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) with 25+ registered songwriter credits. 

Ford's work has appeared in several publications, including Maintenant, the highly acclaimed annual journal of contemporary Dada writing and art, with recent cover art by Chuck Connelly, Mark Kostabi and Fred Tomaselli, published by Three Rooms Press.

His poetry has been featured in short films by the Mexican director Octavio Maya Rocha, including Ascending Volumes, inspired by a painting by Mark Kostabi, and The Call - NYC, where a visual artist, a musician and a poet bring light to the darkness of the COVID-19 pandemic through their art.


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Performance / Tour

John S. Hall Of King Missile Strikes Sky Vault + Mike Visceglia, Gene Pritsker, Wayne Dumaine, Charles Coleman, Robert C. Ford & Carlinius M On March 29, 2024

John S. Hall Of King Missile Strikes Sky Vault + Mike Visceglia, Gene Pritsker, Wayne Dumaine, Charles Coleman, Robert C. Ford & Carlinius M On March 29, 2024

Source: Robert C. Ford

On Friday March 29, 2024, at 7:30pm EST an intimate salon concert will be held at Sky Vault in the Financial District of New York City. Featured performers include poets Robert C. Ford, John S. Hall (King Missile) and Carli Munoz aka Carlinius M (Beach Boys, Eddie Gomez), accompanied by baritone Charles Coleman (Paavo Järvi, London Symphony Orchestra) and musicians Mike Visceglia (bass—Suzanne Vega, John Cale), Gene Pritsker (guitar—Matrix Resurrections, Joe Zawinul) and Wayne Dumaine (trumpet—New York Philharmonic, Prince). John ...

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Performance / Tour

Gene Pritsker's Sound Liberation Feat. Lara St. John At Joe's Pub Saturday, March 9, 2024

Gene Pritsker's Sound Liberation Feat. Lara St. John At Joe's Pub Saturday, March 9, 2024

Source: Robert C. Ford

On March 9th at 7pm (doors open 6pm), Joe's Pub and Composers Concordance present “Vivaldi's Hot House." This composition by Gene Pritsker (Matrix Resurrections, Joe Zawinul) is a starting point for this eclectic event with violin doyenne Lara St. John and Pritsker's ensemble Sound Liberation. The concert will feature a genre defying repertoire of music inspired by various composers from the past including Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Mozart, reinterpreted with jazz, metal, hip-hop, etc. Featured singers include soprano Adriana Valdes, baritone ...

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Performance / Tour

Gene Pritsker's Sound Liberation At Nublu Sunday, February 25, 2024

Gene Pritsker's Sound Liberation At Nublu Sunday, February 25, 2024

Source: Robert C. Ford

On February 25, 2024 at 7:30pm, Composers Concordance presents The Sound Liberation Trio at Nublu (151 Avenue C, NYC). The trio is comprised of Gene Pritsker (Matrix Resurrections, Joe Zawinul) guitar, Adam Holzman (Miles Davis, Steven Wilson, Brave New World) moog/synth and David Cossin (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) drums in a program of eclectic trio compositions. Joining the trio are trumpeter Franz Hackl (Outreach Music Festival) and trombonist Dick Griffin (Sun Ra's Arkestra) as well as poets Kelsea Brunner, Robert ...

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Performance / Tour

Violins & Poems 'war' Set For February 3, 2024 At The Delancey

Violins & Poems 'war' Set For February 3, 2024 At The Delancey

Source: Robert C. Ford

On Saturday February 3, 2024 at 6:30pm at The Delancey (168 Delancey Street, NYC), Composers Concordance presents Violins & Poems 'War'. A concert where violinists & poets meet to explore the subject of war. The poets for this event are Robert C. Ford, Erik T. Johnson, and Imelda O'Reilly. They will be joined by violinists Lynn Bechtold, Funda Cizmecioglu, Tasos Papastanou, and Mark Zaki. Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Michelle Shocked will also participate and premiere a new arrangement (by Randall Woolf) of ...

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Performance / Tour

NYC Salon Concert With David Soldier, Jason Kao Hwang, Gene Pritsker & Robert C. Ford Set for Thursday January 11, 2023

NYC Salon Concert With David Soldier, Jason Kao Hwang, Gene Pritsker & Robert C. Ford Set for Thursday January 11, 2023

Source: Robert C. Ford

On Thursday January 11, 2023, at 7:30pm EST a concert will be held at the Sky Vault in the Financial District of New York City. It will feature original music and poetry by world class performers in an intimate salon atmosphere. This event is private but a free livestream is available via the Ticket Link below to the Facebook event page. Featured performers include David Soldier violin/acoustic guitar, Jason Kao Hwang violin, Gene Pritsker electric guitar and Robert C. Ford ...

"This disc [The Music Between Us] is a song cycle on poetry by Robert C. Ford, better known as the “Wall Street Poet.” Three composers - Charles Coleman, Mark Kostabi and Gene Pritsker - have collaborated to put Ford’s enticing poetry into the limelight. The ten selections on this album are all poems of Ford, and they all challenge us to form our own conclusions about recent events that we have all experienced, such as the pandemic, and the political malaise that is gripping our beloved America. 
-Andrew Humphries, No Scene Unheard (February 22, 2022)

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Concerts

  Fri, Mar 29
New York, NY
John S. Hall, Michael Visceglia, Wayne...
Sky Vault
Fri, Mar 29. 7:30 pm

Music