Photo © Peter Schaaf

“No event has quite captured the prevailing ideology of classical music in America like the premiere of Rob Kapilow’s ‘Citypiece’ last night at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall … The piece itself was offered as a musical monument, a collective act of music-making and listening intended to bring the city together.”
— Washington Post (on “D.C. Monuments”)

Rob Kapilow’s Citypieces celebrate American life – its history, peoples and places, diversity, and common ground – revealed through the unifying process of collaborative compositions. Citypieces are created through explorations, conversations, and town hall meetings with community groups, organizations, and schools. Citypiece audiences across America discover music that is dynamic, heartfelt, accessible, and entertaining.

Rob Kapilow’s Citypieces Compositions

  • Golden Gate Opus (Commissioned by The Marin Symphony to celebrate the Bridge’s 75th anniversary; premiered May 2012)
  • Summer Sun, Winter Moon (Lewis & Clark) (2004)
  • ’03: This New Immense, Unbounded World (Louisiana Purchase) (2003)
  • Union Station (150th anniversary of Kansas City) (2000)
  • Monuments at the Millennium (D.C. monuments) (2000)
  • Shuttlecocks (Kansas City sculptures) (1996)

Golden Gate Opus

In the Spring of 2011, Rob Kapilow was commissioned by The Marin Symphony to compose Golden Gate Opus, a piece for orchestra, chorus, and recorded natural sound to celebrate the Bridge’s 75th anniversary next year. To capture the authentic sounds of the bridge in this new piece, The Marin Symphony and Rob Kapilow teamed up to gather input from locals, visiting the surrounding communities and schools, and asking the question, “What does the bridge sound like to you?”. After an overwhelming response, Rob hopes that the composition will capture the sounds, history, and legacy of the iconic landmark. The piece premiered in May 2012, when it was played from both sides of the bridge.

Interviews and more about Golden Gate Opus:

Summer Sun, Winter Moon

Photo © Hugo Perez

Commemorating the Bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark expedition
World Premiere: Fall 2004
Commissioned by the Carlsen Center (for the Kansas City Symphony), the Saint Louis Symphony, and the Louisiana Philharmonic, this large-scale choral/orchestral work features a libretto by Darrell Kipp, a writer from the Blackfoot tribe. The work commemorates the bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark expedition from a multicultural perspective to “cross the divide” that separates Native America and mainstream America.

Summer Sun, Winter Moon pairs an innovative composer with a writer fighting to save the Blackfeet language from extinction. Through conversations and town hall meetings from the head of the Missouri River in St. Louis to the Rocky Mountains along the Continental Divide to the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Coast of Oregon, Rob Kapilow and Darrell Kipp follow the footsteps of Lewis and Clark to discover the explorers’ legacy and the impact and meaning the expedition had both then and in our lives today.