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The Take From the Top
Joseph Robinson has been principal oboe with the New York Philharmonic
since 1978, and for thirty years, baritone William Workman sang leading
roles in the great opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan
Opera in New York and Covent Garden in London.
"The skills a performer must develop," says Workman, "require hours
spent in practice and rehearsal that can preclude breadth and depth
of education. Nonetheless, I have never known a really fine musician
who was 'music simple'.... That I was able to study at Davidson College
and the Curtis Institute of Music was one of the greatest blessings
of my life."
Robinson agrees: "Bill Workman's and my musical careers attest to the
validity of the basic premise of the traditional liberal arts curriculum,
which is that success can best be anticipated by nourishing the whole
person, rather than by narrowly inculcating skills and techniques."
Twenty years after they graduated, the Class of '62 duet joined voice
and reed to create an unforgettable musical experience and establish
an enduring memorial to Don Plott through a scholarship endowment. During
the Donald Plott Memorial Concert festivities in 1983, Davidson awarded
honorary doctorates to William Workman and Joseph Robinson, celebrating
their musicianship and their humanity.
Bill
Workman '62: "Because, not content with high attainments," read the honorary degree
citation, "you keep pressing on to higher ones; because, in a world
increasingly particularist, you go amongst peoples as a man of one world...."
Workman moved to Davidson in 1951 when his father, Gaty Workman, joined
a young psychology department he was later to chair. In high school
he played trombone, but loved singing and began at sixteen to study
voice with Don Plott. Two years later, as a freshman at Davidson, he
made his opera debut with the Charlotte Opera Company as Morales in
Bizet's Carmen.
In 1960 he was accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
He studied singing there during the winter terms and returned to Davidson
for summer sessions. He received his diploma Davidson in 1963 with a
degree in
English, and earned the Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute in
1965.
That same year, he was hired by Rolf Liebermann as soloist with the
Hamburg State Opera. This world-famous house, together with the Frankfurt
Opera, which Christoph von Dohnányi invited him to join as principle
lyric baritone a few years later, remained his base of operations for
the next quarter-century, during which he sang leading roles in more
than fifty opera houses in Europe, the Americas, and Australia--among
them the Paris Opéra, the Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires, the
State Operas of Vienna, Berlin and Munich, London's Covent Garden, and
the Metropolitan Opera of New York.
In 1985 Workman began teaching, and in 1988 was made Professor for
Life at the State Academy of Music and Theater in Hamburg. In the early
nineties, he retired from opera to devote more time and energy to the
Academy, but continues to appear as soloist with orchestra and in recital.
For the past five years he has chaired the Academy voice department,
acclaimed by The Economist as the finest in the world.
"I believe the Davidson experience still to be unique among liberal
educations because of the qualities both human and academic of her faculty,"
says Workman. "I cannot imagine anyone...whether 'doctor, lawyer, or
merchant-chief'...failing to profit therefrom."
Bill and his wife Bet, formerly a ballet dancer and now likewise a
teacher, live on a small farm near Hamburg. They have three grown children
and one grandson.
Joseph
Robinson '62: Joe Robinson's dad once warned him not to "go off the deep end with
this oboe thing!" Fortunately, he didn't follow that advice. Handed
the oboe during high school in Lenoir, N.C., by Captain James C. Harper
'15, Robinson has clung to it ever since. With his instrument and a
strong grounding in the liberal arts‹and, okay, talent and hard work‹he
has reached the top position for professional oboists in America without
ever attending a conservatory.
An English major, Robinson graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1962, and holds
an M. A. in public administration from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School
of Public and International Affairs. In 1963 he received a Fulbright
to study government support of the arts in Germany.
Before Zubin Mehta asked him to join the New York Philharmonic in 1977,
Joe taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem
and was principal oboe of the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Shaw. Joe
has appeared frequently as oboe soloist with the New York Philharmonic
in Avery Fisher Hall and on tours of Europe and South America.
Joe is proud that he has been able to use his position to benefit others--including
alma mater--in ways that have reached beyond the traditional bounds
of the concert stage. "Because of my Davidson College experiences, I
have always felt that power implies an obligation to serve, that privilege
is prelude to responsibility, and that success is not so much in the
attainment as in the redemptive use of significant influence," says
Joe.
Among Robinson's many projects and activities is service on the Board
of Directors of The Brevard Music Center, where he will premiere a double
concerto for oboe and violin by Peter Schickele with violinist Glenn
Dicterow in July.
Joseph Robinson is married to violinist Mary Kay Robinson, a member
of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and is father of three daughters,
the oldest of whom, Katie, graduated cum laude with a degree in English
from Davidson in 1996.
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