2025-2026 Composers' Symposium8/12/2026The annual Robb Symposium Series aligns with The University of New Mexico's academic year, with events taking place during the fall and spring semesters. All events are free admission all ages family-friendly community events, unless otherwise noted. Visit this page regularly for new event listings.  New Music Piano Recital Emanuele Arciuli Tuesday 21 October 2025 7:30pm 4 World Premieres 2 Robb Trust Commissions Free Admission a family-friendly community event Composers Lucas Stafford, Carlos Santiago Medina, Emilio Méndez Rizo, Jonah Elrod*, Jessi Harvey*, Kyle Gann, Louis W. Ballard Keller Hall at Center for the Arts (CFA) University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts MSC04 2570 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001 Directions *Jessi Harvey and Jonah Elrod are recipients of the 2026 Robb Commission.  Artist Talk Daniel Ward Friday 6 December 2025 11am Free Admission a family-friendly community event Center for the Arts (CFA) Room 1111 University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts MSC04 2570 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001 Directions  Artist Talk Christopher Trapani Friday 6 February 2026 11am Free Admission a family-friendly community event Center for the Arts (CFA) Room 1111 University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts MSC04 2570 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001 Directions  Artist Residency Trio Magnoliana 6-8 April 2026 featuring: Mann-Wen Lo, violin Eunghee Cho, cello Andrew Staupe, piano Monday 6 April 2026 Closed rehearsals with composers Tuesday 7 April 2026 Closed rehearsals with composers Wednesday 8 April 2026 3:30-5:00pm Violin Masterclass CFA Rm 2100 Cello Masterclass Keller Hall 7:30pm Annual Robb Concert Featured Composers
Center for the Arts (CFA) University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts MSC04 2570 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001 Directions  Artist Residency the [Switch~ Ensemble] 4-6 May 2026 Monday 4 May 2026 Rehearsals with composers Tuesday 5 May 2026 Rehearsals with composers Wednesday 6 May 2026 4:00-5:00pm Masterclasses
7:30-9:00pm Concert Free Admission Keller Hall at Center for the Arts (CFA) 203 Cornell Dr, Albuquerque, NM 87106 Directions 54th Annual John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium Series 2025-2026 Season Finale the [Switch~ Ensemble] Wed 6 May 2026 7:30-9:00pm 6 World Premieres 7 New Mexico-based Composers 1 Visiting Composer-in-Residence UNM Keller Hall free admission 203 Cornell Dr, Albuquerque, NM 87106 Directions  poster by Emilio Méndez Rizo Program All composers are in attendance at tonight's performance. Roberto De León-Ortiz (b. 1994) The rest is unrest 2026 * Nicholas Daniel López (b. 1985) Variations on a Lebanese Lullaby 2024; rev. 2026 * Emilio Méndez Rizo (b. 1998) Always Beginning 2026 * Peter Gilbert & Karola Obermüller in die Zeit vergangen (eine Malina-Suite) 2026 * intermission Jason Thorpe Buchanan (b. 1986) soliloquios del viento 2016; rev. 2017 Carlos Santiago Medina (b. 2003) Homage to Lugosi and Bartók 2026 * Kelly Feng // 冯重瑞 (b. 2002) Glitch Refuses 2026 * * world premiere Program Notes The rest is unrest for mixed ensemble Roberto De León-Ortiz (b. 1994) world premiere The music centers on a constant state of instability, where overlapping and interweaving lines move between stillness and varying degrees of motion, rarely settling together. Clear pitch is gradually pushed toward noise as part of a continuous shift. This constant sense of unrest drives the music forward. Throughout, pitch material expands and contracts, stretching outward and folding back into itself. Moments of precise alignment only emerge as brief coloristic events rather than structural pivots. Variations on a Lebanese Lullaby (2024 rev. 2026) Nicholas Daniel López (b. 1985) world premiere Originally composed in the fall of 2024 amid escalating violence in Lebanon, this trio for piano, flute, and cello is a response to the mobile-device bombings whose signals and aftershocks permeate the score’s sonic field. At its core is a dialogue between Lebanese singer Fairuz’s “Yalla Tnam Reema” and Lebanon’s terrifying ambient soundscape of the time—tender lyric fragments suspended in horror. I updated the score’s gestures to reify the violence and ballistic concatenation that has returned to the Levant recently. The work’s first iteration was premiered May 2025 at Paul Hall in New York City. Always Beginning Emilio Méndez Rizo (b. 1998) world premiere I. Prim II. Aloof III. Gemas en la Casa de los Espejos IV. Ritual Atónito V. This River Shouldn't Be Here VI. ... y las ninfas se perdieron in die Zeit vergangen (eine Malina-Suite) Peter Gilbert & Karola Obermüller world premiere Ingeborg Bachmann’s landmark feminist novel Malina has occupied our last four years as we composed a 90-minute opera recently premiered in Germany of which this piece is a kind of echoing memory.
soliloquios del viento (2016; rev. 2017) Jason Thorpe Buchanan (b. 1986) soliloquios del viento was commissioned by Royaumont Académie Voix Nouvelles, written in August of 2016 and premiered by the Talea Ensemble & EXAUDI on September 9, 2016, conducted by James Baker. This fifteen-minute work is a meditation on eight poems of Pablo Neruda, reflecting love, distance, and despair. Six singers are set against eight instrumentalists whose fragile and often voiceless sonorities gently color and obscure the murmuring of the text and pointillistic vocal material. The Spanish text is predominantly unintelligible, with the content of Neruda's words instead conjured by the composite texture. He writes of two lovers, their romance characterized by abrasion – a rendezvous between two scorched, ascetic souls, who consume and destroy one another, entangled yet divided by both sublime transfiguration and inexorable chaos. The revised versions for sextet/septet and electronics was completed in 2017 for Ensemble Interface’s premiere at the 2017 VIPA Festival in Spain and the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble’s premiere at the 2019 TICF Academy and Festival in Thailand, respectively, redistributing vocal parts to the electronics and ensemble, alongside instrumental samples and other sources. Neruda’s texts evoke not only the conflict between darkness and light in both persons, but through this lens, the experience of being confronted with the subjectivity of another’s consciousness. That otherness is manifest in lurid, destructive passions, revealing mutual incoherence, frailty, and sophism beyond endurance. Each poem seems to present discrete, parallel scenarios, some in which each person is awoken by their confrontation rather than destroyed – in others suffering to the point of intolerable anguish and desolation. Eroticism and sunderance run throughout Neruda’s powerful imagery, his lover depicted as an enemy with whom he pleads for voice – who has disgraced their love. For the poet, love is the sole means with which two people may “weather” one another. A source of both euphoria and utter devastation, there is a vastness that is evoked in his texts, an attempt to span immeasurable time and distance. Each braves the other, an intimacy and corrosive embrace that both breaks and absolves each person. Homage to Lugosi and Bartók Carlos Santiago Medina (b. 2003) world premiere Two Hungarian people have become heavy influences in my music and art. Bela Lugosi, the actor who played Count Dracula in the 1931 movie adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, and Bela Bartók, the composer famous for his spiky aesthetic and musicological research. My homage is simply a love letter to both artists, and to the creations they have left behind for me to enjoy. Performers the [Switch~ Ensemble] is
Artistic Statement  A new music ensemble for the 21st Century, the [Switch~ Ensemble] is dedicated to the creation of new works for chamber ensemble: we bring bold new acoustic, electroacoustic, and multimedia projects to life. At the core of each performance is our commitment to the total integration of technology and live musicians. We strive for compelling artistry achieved through the seamless creation, production, and execution of new music, and believe that working directly with composers—in a medium where the score is a point of departure rather than a finish line—allows for new and thrilling musical possibilities. [Switch~] contributes to the future of the genre by strongly advocating for and commissioning the music of a new generation of emerging young composers. We have enjoyed fruitful collaborations with both emerging and established composers, with commissions and premieres of works by composers including Anna-Louise Walton, Alican Çamci, Igor Santos, Katherine Young, Stefano Gervasoni, Stefan Prins, Wojtek Blecharz, Anthony Vine, Rand Steiger, Philippe Leroux, Timothy McCormack, Tonia Ko, James Bean, Matt Sargent, Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, Esaias Järnegard, Sivan Eldar, Julio Zúñiga, Zeynep Toraman, Alexander Schubert, Adrien Trybucki, Elvira Garifzyanova, Santiago Diez-Fischer, Lisa Streich, Anthony Pateras, and many others. Recent engagements include performances and residencies at Cornell, Bard College, University of Chicago, Ithaca College, Buffalo State, UC Berkeley, the VIPA Festival (Spain), Eastman School of Music, and Avaloch Farms Music Institute, as well as concerts at the Image/Sound Festival, San Francisco Center for New Music, MATA Interval Series, NYCEMF, Vanguard New Music Series at Kent State University, the Queens New Music Festival, the CD release of Christopher Chandler’s Smoke and Mirrors on the SEAMUS label, and more. 2019-20 season highlights include a workshop and performance at UC San Diego for a new commission by Katharina Rosenberger; the premiere of her work at the DiMenna Center in New York City; a return engagement at Eastman Audio Research Studio; and residencies with Harvard Group for New Music, Miami’s Frost School of Music, and the SPLICE Institute. Here's the [Switch~ Ensemble] performing the world premiere of Hard columns you within (2022) by Victoria Cheah, Chatham, New York, November 18, 2022. Laura Cocks-flutes, Madison Greenstone-clarinets, Lauren Cauley-violin, T.J. Borden-cello, Megan Arns-percussion, Jason Thorpe Buchanan-electronics, Audio and Video mixed and edited by Jason Thorpe Buchanan. Composers  Roberto De León-Ortiz (b. 1994) is a Mexican composer and pianist currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Composition and Collaborative Piano at the University of New Mexico, under the guidance of Dr. José-Luis Hurtado and Pamela Viktoria Pyle. His works have been premiered and recorded by performers such as the JACK Quartet, Laura Cocks, Ángel Flores, Ben Roidl-Ward, TRAMAS collective, Siqueiros Trio, Francisco Alcocer, and the University of Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra. He was a recipient of the 2020 PECDA grant (Artistic Creation and Development Funding Program, awarded by the government of Mexico), for which he composed a largescale work for piano and percussion, which he premiered as pianist. Here is Roberto's composition "Bounce" selected piece of Sonit's Call for Scores 2020 for solo double bass, performed by Francisco Alcocer, produced by Enrique Mendoza, Jonathan Figueroa, and Axel Retif, May 2022. Visit Roberto's Soundcloud channel to hear more of his music.  Nicholas Daniel López (b.1985) is an emerging composer whose work lies at the intersection of culture and history. Drawing on his Hispanic heritage—alongside classical and cinematic traditions—he creates emotionally resonant works driven by a sense of inevitability and storytelling. López earned his Bachelor of Music in Composition as a Presidential Scholar from the USC Thornton School of Music and holds Certificates in Composition from The Juilliard School Extension Division and in Harmony & Counterpoint from the European American Musical Alliance at the Schola Cantorum in Paris. A laureate of the Young Composer’s Competition in Barcelona for his setting of Federico García Lorca’s Romance de la pena negra, López continues to explore vivid, culturally informed sound worlds. He recently returned home to pursue dual Master of Music degrees in Theory & Composition and Musicology at UNM, integrating interdisciplinary research and studies in opera to explore the stories of his homeland. Here's a performance of López's composition Grey Glass Panes performed by Cello Fourum: Marc Moskovitz, Peng Li, David Meyer, and Nathaniel Yaffe, Dec 2014.  Emilio Méndez Rizo (b. 1998) was born in Simi Valley, California. He moved to Mexico City, where he was raised, shortly after birth. He began his musical studies in 2006, playing piano and electric guitar. During his teenage years he delved into electronic music, taking a self-teaching approach, which, through an unexpected turn of events, by connecting an appeal for complex timbre and form, lead him to take on the world of academic concert music. Shortly after beginning his undergraduate studies at the Escuela Superior de Música (ESM, INBAL, Mexico City) in 2018, he was selected, alongside fellow colleagues, to present a mixed-media work as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART). Following this performance, he was commissioned to compose a fanfare; however, the project was ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this setback, the artistic relationships formed during the event led to several commissions from ensemble members, including a drum set concerto for the conductor’s graduation recital and a string quartet. Driven by a deep commitment to collaboration and guided by a humane artistic vision, he has taken part in several interdisciplinary projects. Notably, he contributed to the award-winning independent film collective Desvaríos, composing for the short film Puertas (2022). “Emi” has always looked for maximizing the emotional effects of music, whether it’s by mellow textures or blasted tones. Blending compositional techniques of total specificity with aleatoric processes and uncanny timbres through electronics, using his background in mathematics, he thrives in simplifying complex ideas into intuitive notation with a powerful emotional load. Here is Realidades Entrelazadas 1 (Entangled Realities 1) Composition & Live Electronics by Emilio Méndez Rizo, Conducted by Adrián Gutiérrez de Llano, performed by Kandinsky Chamber Orchestra, Premiered 26 January 2020, Teatro nacional de las Artes, México.  Peter Gilbert Robb Composers' Symposium Series Director is a Professor of Music at the University of New Mexico. He has commissions and accolades from the Barlow Foundation, New Music USA, the Aaron Copland House, ZKM (Institut für Akustik und Musik), the Russolo Foundation, the Look & Listen Festival, the Third Practice Festival, and IMEB Bourges. He writes: “My music usually aspires to create a sonic architecture that helps us lose our sense of time completely and allows us to partake in a kind of more direct aural experience in search of passageways to transcendence.” Gilbert’s music can be heard on numerous labels including New Focus Recordings and at petergilbert.net. Here is Peter Gilbert's Soon as the Sun Forsook the Eastern Main performed by Emanuele Arciuli, piano from the album Burned into the Orange released by New Focus Recordings and available on Bandcamp.  Karola Obermüller Robb Composers' Symposium Series Co-Artistic Director Karola's composing, described by the New York Times as "hyperkinetic music”, is constantly in search of the unknown. After obtaining composition degrees in Nuremberg, Saarbrücken, and the University Mozarteum Salzburg, her sense of rhythm and form was forever changed by studying Carnatic and Hindustani classical music in Chennai and Delhi, India. A Ph.D. at Harvard University brought her to the US where she taught at the University of New Mexico before joining the Department of Music at UC San Diego. She also lives and works part of the year in Europe and has been a visiting artist at ZKM, Deutsche Akademie Rom, Centro Tedesco di studi Veneziani, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Eisler House (International Hanns Eisler Scholarship), and IRCAM. Her music, often political, always dramatic, includes operas for Staatstheater Nürnberg, Theater Bielefeld, Theater Bonn, Theater Heidelberg, Theater Aachen, and Stuttgart’s Musik der Jahrhunderte. The emotional juxtapositions of story suspended in a tableau architecture that one finds in her operas can be heard in her concert works as well. These include commissions from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fromm Music Foundation, New Music USA, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Saarländischer Rundfunk, and numerous renowned soloists and ensembles. Her music can be heard on CD (WERGO, New Focus Recordings, Brilliant Classics, NEOS) and online at karolaobermueller.net. Here is Karola Obermüller's Dehnung (2020) for daegeum, koto, gayageum, two violins, viola violoncello, double bass, and percussion performed by AsianArt Ensemble 15 May 2023, Konzerthaus Berlin. All rights reserved.  Jason Thorpe Buchanan (b.1986) is a tri-continentally active composer, intermedia artist, and technologist. His works explore multiplicity, causality, behavior, and the integration of live performance with technology. In 2025, he was appointed Professor für Komposition mit digitalen Medien at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg, Germany, and leads the graduate program in Komposition mit neuen Medien as director of the Zentrum für Intermediale Komposition (formerly Studio für experimentelle elektronische Musik). He has been recognized internationally through fellowships and commissions from the Fulbright Foundation (to HfMT Hamburg, 2010-11), the American-Scandinavian Foundation, EMPAC (2025), Royaumont (France, 2016 & 2017), TIME SPANS (NYC), the Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF, 2013), the International Horn Society, Eklekto Percussion (Switzerland), Tetractys New Music (Austin), Tzlil Meudcan, the Earle Brown Music Foundation, two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards (2014 & 2015), Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, as winner of Iron Composer (2014), the Howard Hanson Orchestral Prize (2014) and more, including selection as Artist-in-Residence at USF Verftet (Norway), the Embassy of Foreign Artists (Switzerland), the Brush Creek Foundation (Wyoming), nomination for the 2015 Gaudeamus Prize, as a 2024 Aaron Copland Bogliasco Fellow (Italy), and as a 2026 SWR EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO Fellow (Germany). Learn more about Jason. Here's soliloquios del viento (2016; rev. 2017) by Jason Thorpe Buchanan, version for sextet and electronics, performed by the TACETi Ensemble at the TRANSIT Festival in Leuven, Belgium October 2019.  Carlos Santiago Medina (b. 2003) or Santi, as he likes to be called, is a guitarist and composer born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He currently studies at the University of New Mexico, working towards a bachelor's in music theory and composition. Alongside his college studies, Santi participates in the Albuquerque Composer Collective. A student organization that advocates for DIY (do it yourself) music projects, events, and collaborations. Inspired by his metal phase in his teenage years, Santi fell in love with the post-tonal works of Leo Brouwer, Béla Bartók, and Arnold Schoenberg. Though his musical aesthetic reflects his punk and serialist influences, Santi would describe his style as “New Mexican”. Here's a performance of Santi's work, Dos Poemas Del Paramo. His sister wrote the poems/lyrics which he set to music. The performers are New York City based loadbang, a mixed ensemble for voice, clarinet, trumpet, and trombone. Visit Santi's YouTube channel to hear more of his artistry.  Kelly Feng // 冯重瑞 (b. 2002) (she/her/hers) is a composer and interdisciplinary artist whose works are a blend of electronic music, electroacoustic music, traditional concert music, and intermedia installations. She makes her own instruments and much of her works root in decolonial, feminist, and anti-authoritarian perspectives. Her artistic practice prioritizes community, human connection, DIY culture, and non-conformity towards systems of power. Outside of creating and composing, Kelly is also an enthusiastic performer and she enjoys collaborating with fellow musicians and artists on noise and art shows. Recipient of the 2024 Erickson Prize and the 2023 Dr. Milton H. Saier, Sr. Memorial Award, Kelly holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego, where she graduated summa cum laude. She is currently working on her Master’s degree in Theory and Composition from the University of New Mexico. Her teachers include Peter Gilbert, Stewart Copeland, Karola Obermueller, Rand Steiger, Chinary Ung, Lei Liang, and Marcos Balter. Kelly was born in Shenzhen, China, and was raised between Shenzhen and San Jose, California. Currently based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, she loves spending her weekends with dogs and cats at her local animal shelter. In an alternative universe, she would probably pursue a pet grooming / pet training career. Here is a performance of How Much of Me by Kelly Feng // 冯重瑞 performed by Jesse Tatum, at the Robb Electronica concert, Tuesday 4 February 2025, UNM ARTSLab. Recording and Video Editing by Kelly Feng. Special thanks to Peter Gilbert, Valery Estabrook, Sarah Bennett Davidson, and Stewart Copeland. Underwriting Musicology6/9/2026 we are ROBBtrust
2024 ¡Música del Corazón! curator 2025 underwriting recipient Javier Marín-López Working with the UNM John Donald Robb Musical Trust has been exceptionally enriching. Serving as co-curator of ¡Música del Corazón! in 2024, receiving support through the 2025 Underwriting Program, and working with the Robb Archives have provided unique opportunities for research, scholarly exchange, and public engagement. These experiences have deepened my understanding of the region’s rich musical heritage and its connections with the broader United States, Mexico, and Spain, while fostering meaningful collaborations that continue to shape and transform my work as a musicologist. ~ Dr. Javier Marín-López More information about Javier is available at his Linktree. Here are his mid-term and final reports for his 2025 Robb Trust Underwriting project, Vestiges of Hispanic Colonial Music in the John Donald Robb Archive of Southwestern Music. Learn more Música del Corazón Underwriting Robb Archives  we are ROBBtrust
2026 underwriting recipient Mónica Sánchez May 2026 MÓNICA SÁNCHEZ is a professional theatre artist. Over the past 40 years, she has honed the craft of professional actor; written plays and devised work for the stage; directed productions small and large; enjoyed a myriad of assignments as a teaching artist; and has facilitated numerous community engagements.She holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the University of New Mexico and is a retired Professor of Playwriting and Performance at Colorado College, in Colorado Springs. She began her theatre journey in her native New Mexico with La Compañía de Teatro de Alburquerque, before a 23-year residency in California where she would collaborate with El Teatro Campesino, Octavio Solís, Luís Alfaro, Culture Clash, the Latino Theatre Lab, South Coast Repertory, San Diego Repertory, Erik Ehn, Cornerstone Theatre, Shirley Jo Finney, Playwright's Arena, and Diane Rodriguez, among others. Television and Film credits include the roles of Dolores Huerta in The Glorias, House of Cards, and Primo, among others. Her plays aspire to unveil the varied and underrepresented experiences of Latinidad in the U.S., particularly the complex and unique philosophical, cultural and historical milieu of the Southwest; not only ripe for dramatic exploration but also sorely missing from the canon of the American theatre. She currently resides in Albuquerque, NM where she continues her work in independent, professional, and community projects and is always keen to entertain collaborations near and far. About "THE RIVER IS A SCAR THAT SOMETIMES BLEEDS WATER" THE RIVER IS A SCAR THAT SOMETIMES BLEEDS WATER is the psycho-spiritual journey of "Negra", a Mestiz-Genizara-Chicana 21st Century war veteran returned to her ancestral homeland in the Southwest. Psychotropic plant medicine launches her odyssey through a ceremonial and multi-generational labyrinth where she must confront ancestral trauma and original wounds, making way for the ultimate transformation: her desire to live. Quintessential New Mexican topography, histories and rituals illuminate universal echoes of colonization, war, and climate crisis. This play is Negra’s “trip”. The Robb Trust is providing funding for a workshop production of THE RIVER IS A SCAR THAT SOMETIMES BLEEDS WATER. A first staged reading of the play was recently conducted at the Albuquerque Museum to a standing room only audience. There was much interest in the performance. The general consensus was that the story spoke to the New Mexican experience, was of great significance, and needed to be told. The workshop production is a step towards developing the play for a future, fully produced theatre event. The play encompasses a broad reach of New Mexican histories, customs, characters, and rituals. Traditional music and specific songs from the Robb collection are a vital element to completing the storytelling of this play’s narrative. Sánchez's script has previously been supported by the Jackson Fellowship from Hulbert Center for Southwest Studies at Colorado College (2021), a micro-commission from The Alcove New Play Development at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in NYC (2023), and most recently from the City of Albuquerque’s Urban Enhancement Trust Fund’s (UETF) Resiliency Residency, in addition to production support from the Museum of Albuquerque for the Staged Reading that took place on 29 March 2026, in conjunction with the Delilah Montoya Retrospective: Activating Chicana Resistance. Learn more about our annual underwriting. in Memoriam : Jim Bonnell6/3/2026 we are ROBBtrust beloved longtime board member Jim Bonnell (1939-2025) July 2025 Jim was a longtime board member and past Chair of the Robb Trust. Here is his obituary as it was printed in the Albuquerque Journal. He is dearly missed by many. James E. (Jim) Bonnell, age 85 died on July 17, 2025. From pioneering Otero County families, Jim was born in Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 22, 1939, to Charles E. Bonnell and Edith Ogle Bonnell. After graduating from Alamogordo High School in 1957, Jim's education included a Masters in Music Education (plus 45 credit hours) which included a Certificate of Administration and Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico. His graduate and post-graduate work, in addition to UNM, included Eastern New Mexico University, Western State College of Colorado, New Mexico State University, Eastman School of Music-University of Rochester, and Indiana University. He began his teaching career in Artesia, NM, where he met his lifelong beloved collaborator, Paula Diane Thompson, from Trumann, Arkansas. They were married in 1964 and recently celebrated their 61st anniversary. After a career in New Mexico public schools in Artesia, Las Cruces, and Albuquerque which spanned almost thirty years, Mr. Bonnell retired in 1989 from Albuquerque Public Schools where he served in various positions including Instructor, District Specialist, District Coordinator, and District Director (Acting) of Music Education. In 1989, Mr. Bonnell began a second career in the non-profit field working with both the Boy Scouts of America and then with Jan Hosea & Associates, LLC, in April of 2002. He served as Chief Operations Officer for Madden Hosea & Associates. Jim held leadership positions in numerous community and professional organizations and was recognized in 2019 with the New Mexico Platinum Music Award "for extraordinary lifetime achievement". He was currently Vice Chair of the University of New Mexico's John D. Robb Musical Trust Board of Directors, and an Advisory Board member of the New Mexico Performing Arts Society of Santa Fe. He previously served as Education Vice President, Program Vice President, Strategic Education Chair, and Ethics Education Chair, for the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Chapter of the Association for Fundraising Professionals, and was a past president and member of the Advisory Council of the Albuquerque Arts Alliance. Other affiliations have included Board of Directors, UNM College of Fine Arts Alumni Chapter (Past President), the New Mexico Music Educators' National Conference (Past President, Hall of Fame), the 1992 Arts Education Conference, and Arts Attack! Creating the Future, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra Board of Directors, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra Musicians (Past President), Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque Board of Trustees, and ACE Committee of Albuquerque Public Schools (Co-Chairperson). He represented the Great Southwest Council/Boy Scouts of America in many community roles including the District Advisory Council for Safe and Drug Free Schools, The Educational Success Alliance (Past President), the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce Career Guidance Institute K-12 Committee and Blue Ribbon Outstanding Students and Educators Awards Committee, and the Advisory Council for TASA (Team Against Substance Abuse in APS). As a professional musician, he performed as a violist in many Southwestern organizations including the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Opera Southwest, the El Paso Symphony, the Roswell Symphony, the Albuquerque Civic Symphony, the New Mexico Chamber Orchestra, and retired in 1997 as principal viola of the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque. He conducted various orchestras in the Albuquerque Youth Symphony Program: Valley Junior Orchestra, Heights Junior Orchestra, Albuquerque Junior Symphony, and Albuquerque Youth Symphony. He was also active as a church musician having either served as organist and/or choirmaster at St. Matthew's and St. Michael and All Angel's Episcopal in Albuquerque, St. Andrew's Episcopal (substitute) in Las Cruces, and St. Paul's Episcopal in Artesia. Mr. Bonnell filled the role of conductor, adjudicator, and clinician on many occasions in Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico. He also was a presenter on several topics for professional education conferences in the Southwest and served as an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico. He was preceded in death by his grandparents, Charles and Grace Bonnell and James N. and Dessie Ogle; his parents, Charles and Edith Bonnell, and his sister, Betty Jean Bonnell Artz. He is survived by his wife, Paula Diane Thompson Bonnell, and family members including: Sue McAdams, Karen and Howard Slinkard, David and Judy Thompson, Jack Artz and numerous cousins, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews. Jim and his wife Diane, also a retired public school music educator and a professional arts administrator, most recently with the UNM Music Prep School, are members of St. John's Episcopal Cathedral in Albuquerque. Services will be held on August 5th (A Music Tribute at 1:30 and service at 2:00) at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral in Albuquerque, NM. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to The Music Program at the Cathedral Church of St. John (318 Silver Avenue SW, Albuquerque), The Diane Bonnell Scholarship Endowment for the UNM Music Prep School (UNM Foundation), the UNM Robb Musical Trust (UNM Foundation), The Albuquerque Youth Symphony Program, or The International Myeloma Foundation. Emerging Composer6/3/2026 we are ROBBtrust
emerging composer Kelly Feng // 冯重瑞 (b. 2002) UNM MM Theory & Comp '27 April 2026 So far, I have had the chance to write and premiere three different pieces through the Robb Trust and each time I’ve been able to build meaningful connections with amazing musicians. I really appreciate Robb Trust for giving student composers an accessible platform through which they can build their portfolios. Learn more about our annual Composers' Symposium Series and Robb Concert. Graduate Assistantship6/3/2026 we are ROBBtrust
graduate assistantship Emilio Méndez Rizo (b. 1998) July 2026 As for the benefits I obtained from ROBBtrust, in my first year as their graduate assistant, they are many. Most notably, the tuition discount and the stipend, enable my being at UNM. Without them I would not be able to afford rent, food, nor tuition. Even after years of working, saving and even selling precious objects in my home country I could only gather around 3,000 usd which could only cover a fraction of the first semester's cost of attendance. Receiving this aid while asking me to focus on more music, was a major motivation throughout the year. This enabled me to hone my skills as a means of survival, while also participating in other musical activities such as the Albuquerque's composer's collective, where alongside fellow composers we put together a student chamber orchestra, wrote an original scrip, composed, and premiered an original opera that deals with topics of social insecurity and calls for union among working class fellows, regardless of their place of origin, highlighting how we all struggle with similar problems and how working together is the best option to survive. It is truly a joy to work alongside other young composers and musicians, sharing musical tools and organizing as a collective to make new music happen. Another truly remarkable benefit, if not the greatest one, was all the learning I got from rehearsing with world-class musicians realizing residencies at the symposium. Rehearsal time is the most precious time for the composition of a piece, since only there the real problems of a piece are surfaced. The natural reactions of instrumentalists to the score are of crucial importance in composition, while some things must be clearly changed at once, others need only a little more time on the instrumentalist's side to reveal the potential music. Only rehearsing with experienced musicians can a composer truly develop a realistic compass for difficulty, one that can temper to the setting at hand, as professional life will demand. Learn more about our graduate assistantship program. A Family Perspective6/3/2026 Robb at the 1st Moog workshop 1965 we are ROBBtrust
a family perspective by granddaughter Ellen Robb June 2026 As one might imagine from being so closely related to a composer and collector of music, my siblings and I grew up in an environment where music was appreciated and respected. All of us played instruments and were exposed to music appreciation at an early age; taking piano lessons and attending music camp. I studied piano and violin (my favorite) and have fond memories playing our grandfather’s compositions along with my grandfather and grandmother, the trios he wrote for piano, cello and violin. In our visits to their home, we were often entertained by the two of them playing duets on their 2 grand pianos. When I retired from a 20-year career in education, I began serving on the Robb Musical Board. It didn’t take long before I discovered how exciting and meaningful my grandfather’s collection of Hispanic music, in addition to his own compositions, really was. And through the efforts of the Robb Trust, it is inspiring to see how both local and international musicians are featured and promoted! Our grandfather’s dedication in collecting over 3,000 Hispanic Folk Songs reflects the heart and respect he held for the Hispanic culture and his commitment towards preserving it. As he recorded from a wire recorder powered by his car battery, I wonder if he would ever have imagined the significant outreach the Trust has accomplished today, and how the collection has been increasingly utilized by so many: This has been achieved by the hard work and dedication of the Robb Musical Trust Board and its supporters. From my seat in the audience of the Trust sponsored concerts, and feel the enthusiasm in and around me, I’m certain he would be deeply touched by the joy and meaning his efforts have brought to so many. Learn more about JD Robb. 2025 Underwriting Recipient5/18/2026Javier Marín-López, PhD ~ Vestiges of Hispanic Colonial Music in the John Donald Robb Archive of Southwestern Music  Javier Marín-López (Úbeda, Spain) is Professor of Musicology at the Universidad de Jaén, where he specializes in Latin American, Spanish, and U.S. Southwest musical cultures from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. His research focuses on the dynamics of transatlantic exchange, exploring how music circulated across the Ibero-American world and beyond, and has been recognized with awards such as the Samuel Claro Valdés Prize (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) and an Honorable Mention in the Otto Mayer-Serra Award (University of California, Riverside). He holds a Ph.D. in Musicology (with distinction) from the Universidad de Granada and has authored or edited over twenty-five volumes, including critical studies and editions such as Los libros de polifonía de la Catedral de México (2 vols., 2012) and Ignacio Jerusalem: Obras selectas-Selected Works, a landmark bilingual series published with Drew Edward Davies by Dairea Ediciones. His scholarship contributes to redefining the contours of global music history through an emphasis on connected musicologies, colonial soundscapes, and archival recovery. Notable among his editorial work are Músicas coloniales a debate: procesos de intercambio euroamericanos (Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, 2018), De Nueva España a México: el universo musical mexicanos entre centenarios (1517-1917) (Universidad Internacional de Andalucía, 2020), and Músicas iberoamericanas interconectadas: caminos, circuitos y redes (Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2023), collectives volume examining musical exchange through the lens of network theory. Since 2007, he has served as Artistic Director of the Festival de Música Antigua de Úbeda y Baeza, an internationally recognized event that promotes historical performance and the rediscovery of Iberian and Latin American repertoire. His leadership has steered the festival into a dynamic platform for research-based programming and innovative outreach projects. He has also co-produced landmark albums and co-curated the XXV Aniversario live recordings, which document the festival’s legacy. His international collaborations include research projects, editions, and performances with institutions such as the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, and the University of New Mexico, where he was named a Richard E. Greenleaf Visiting Library Scholar in 2024 by the Latin American & Iberian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to leading journals, including Early Music, Latin American Music Review, and Revista de Musicología. A prominent advocate for historical musicology and digital humanities, Marín-López is involved in platforms such as Books of Hispanic Polyphony IMF-CSIC (BHP) and has curated scholarly events and open-access resources to broaden the accessibility of Hispanic musical heritage. He regularly serves on editorial boards and international committees, and has co-directed projects on music and conflict, music and migration, and the role of music in shaping political memory. More information, including links to publications, recordings, and projects, is available at his Linktree page. Here are Javier's mid-term and final reports. Below Dr. Marín-López examines the discographic reception of Latin American colonial music by analyzing samples from different genres, mostly of sacred music, with diverse vocal and instrumental configurations. His talk considers the role recordings have had in the creation of communities and imagined identities by modern audiences. |
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