Phoebe Grace Robertson

United States (residence), Canada (citizenship) °1995
research interests: Music, Flute, Ethnomusicology, Gubaidulina, Soviet Studies, Russian Music
affiliation: Arkansas Tech University
en

Phoebe Robertson is Assistant Professor of Music at Arkansas Tech University. Her research primarily deals with intersections of music and spirituality, with a particular emphasis on the music of the Soviet Union and music from the flute repertoire. She currently serves as a Reviews Editor of the CAML Review, the official publication of the Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres. In addition to her research and teaching, she is an acclaimed flutist and has appeared as a soloist and orchestral musician throughout North America and Europe. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music, a Master of Music degree from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Ottawa.

research

research expositions

  • The Chanting Flute: Uncovering Russian Orthodox and Shamanic Sounds in Sofia Gubaidulina's ...The Deceitful Face of Hope and of Despair (2005) (2025) author(s): Phoebe Grace Robertson published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
    In the early years of the Soviet era, the music of two Russian faith traditions was forced into the shadows. Siberian shamans preserved chants and folk knowledge despite intense persecution, and Russian Orthodox monks preserved early forms of plainchant in remote monasteries away from the watchful eye of the government. Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931), herself a member of the richly-historied and often-marginalized Tatar people, became a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian in the 1960s. During the 1970s, she began performing improvisations with her ensemble Astraea, familiarizing herself with many instruments used by Siberian shamans. Her references to shamanism continued to increase among her concert-hall compositions over the following decades. As a new generation began to embrace the freedom to part from state-sponsored atheism during the 1990s and 2000s, shamanic chanting and Russian Orthodox Znamenny chant experienced a renaissance of practice and scholarly interest. Gubaidulina responded with her music: in her 2005 flute concerto …The Deceitful Face of Hope and of Despair, Gubaidulina’s flute soloist takes on the role of chanter. Drawing on Tia DeNora’s research in the sociology of concerto forms, Kofi Agawu’s framework of musical “topics,” and the composer’s own reflections on the concerto metaphor, this article analyzes how Gubaidulina frames the solo flutist as Siberian shaman and Russian Orthodox cantor within subsequent episodes of this concerto. In this way, the soloist “speaks” through the music of these faith traditions that remained underground for much of Gubaidulina’s adult life. …The Deceitful Face of Hope and of Despair is a flute concerto deserving of its title, demonstrating the dynamic potential of works by post-Soviet composers to contend with the sociological tensions that affect any individual whose cultural, ethnic, or spiritual identity has been the target of discriminatory policies.
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