Projects
The UNM John Donald Robb Musical Trust is actively involved in supporting the community by providing underwriting to organizations, ad hoc projects, educational outreach, programming, concerts, and events. Below is a list of the Trust's recent endeavors.
2025 Project
Raven Chacon's Tiguex
IV: Ballad for Two Cellos, a cellist laments a 2nd cello floating down the Rio Grande. Photo by Nancy Harbert.
The Robb Trust is a proud sponsor of Tiguex. Composed by Pulitzer Prize-winning, Albuquerque-based composer Raven Chacon, Tiguex is a large-scale musical composition consisting of twenty overlapping movements performed over the span of a day. Tiguex’s third movement, “The Greeters,” features three songs from Robb’s field recordings. The performance took place September 27th, 2025, from dawn to dusk, across the city of Albuquerque, and incorporated over 200 musicians.
Chacon is recipient of the 2025 Robb Award.
Learn more:
Chacon is recipient of the 2025 Robb Award.
Learn more:
Ongoing Projects
PBS Learning Project
Folk Music of New Mexico: The John Donald Robb Collection is an educational initiative produced by New Mexico PBS and the University of New Mexico John Donald Robb Musical Trust with support from the University of New Mexico Libraries' Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections, The Mr. and Mrs. Sanford N. McDonnell Foundation, The Brabson Library and Educational Foundation, and Albuquerque Public Schools. The collection contains video, audio, Spanish transcriptions, English translations, and sheet music for the traditional songs. Support materials include lesson plans (coming soon), student handouts, and video descriptions of the song forms. Supplemental reading material and a documentary film by NM PBS, The Musical Adventures of John Donald Robb in New Mexico, are also available.
The Robb Trust provides underwriting and extensive, detailed content. Trust Board members Rosalia Pacheco and Nancy Harbert are working closely with NMPBS to bring this project to completion.
The Robb Trust provides underwriting and extensive, detailed content. Trust Board members Rosalia Pacheco and Nancy Harbert are working closely with NMPBS to bring this project to completion.
Universidad de Nuevo México Mariachi
UNM Music Department Audiotape Digitization Archival Project
Approximately 25 years ago the UNM Fine Arts Library discarded about 1,500 reel-to-reel audio tapes of events presented by the UNM Music Department. The library no longer had the technology to play these tapes. The tapes represent a historic treasure trove with recordings of faculty, student, and guest performances dating from the 1950s – 1990s.
The reel to reel analogue tapes were given to the Music Department which placed them in the basement of Hokona Hall where they sat deteriorating and unavailable for decades. In the summer of 2022, the tapes were “rescued” and subsequently cleaned, labeled, and catalogued. They now reside back in the Music Department. The next goal of the project is to get the tapes digitized so the recordings are once again playable on modern equipment.
The UNM Robb Trust and its Archives/Underwriting Committee initiated support for the digitization process.
Below is one of the 1,500 reel to reel analogue tapes which was recently transferred to digital format and cleaned up for enhanced audio quality. It features John Donald Robb (1892-1989) presenting a lecture on Folk Music of the Southwest at UNM's Keller Hall 1 April 1987.
The reel to reel analogue tapes were given to the Music Department which placed them in the basement of Hokona Hall where they sat deteriorating and unavailable for decades. In the summer of 2022, the tapes were “rescued” and subsequently cleaned, labeled, and catalogued. They now reside back in the Music Department. The next goal of the project is to get the tapes digitized so the recordings are once again playable on modern equipment.
The UNM Robb Trust and its Archives/Underwriting Committee initiated support for the digitization process.
Below is one of the 1,500 reel to reel analogue tapes which was recently transferred to digital format and cleaned up for enhanced audio quality. It features John Donald Robb (1892-1989) presenting a lecture on Folk Music of the Southwest at UNM's Keller Hall 1 April 1987.
Archives