About Robin L. Øye

My family is a musical one. My parents were choral singers and my sisters play music. I began playing the flute in grade four in the Royal Oak, Michigan, Public Schools. I played in school bands and, in high school in the Chicago area, started playing flute in jazz groups. For several summers in my late teens, I would play with drummers on Sunday afternoons in Chicago's Lincoln Park.  I still have very fond memories of those days. I have also played mandolin in folk bands in Chicago, and have performed on several recordings in several genres. I have even been a busker in several cities (once I was arrested for busking). On various flutes and recorders, I have performed everything from Handel and Bach to avant-garde jazz. I have sung in several church choirs and community choirs. I am a graduate of Regents (now Excelsior) College (BA., concentrations in Music and History) and the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Master of Divinity) after two years at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary in Waterloo, Ontario. I was ordained a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1992, but I am not currently involved in parish ministry.

My music has been performed in several venues in the United States and Canada. In July of 2004, my work, A Game For Two was premièred at the New Chamber Music Concert of the Pine Mountain Music Festival in Houghton, Michigan. Other works have also been performed at subsequent New Chamber Music Concerts. In 2005, the third movement of Suite For Viola was performed, and in 2006 Textures for French horn and percussion was premiered.

I love improvisational playing, but I enjoy playing the music of others, too I enjoy working with other performers and composers, though I’m not averse to playing solo. I love composing, as it is like playing instruments that I don’t play. For me, being a composer naturally follows from being an improvisational player. When improvising, I compose whenever I play. I have had many influences on my music, from non-Western as well as Western sources, and from non-musical sources. In recent years, I've become interested in Norwegian folk music (especially music for  the sjøfløyte. As well, I have an interest in Japanese flutes and Chinese flutes. Though many of these influences cannot be identified by particular sounds or combinations of sounds, they can be felt. To be influenced by another musician or composer (or writer, or artist, or someone not usually thought of as being connected to the arts at all) does not always mean that the influence will be audible or visible. I have learned, also, the importance of y quiet. Music would be very difficult without quiet.

I'm married, and we live and garden (and move snow and haul wood) in sight of Lake Superior on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I also write essays and short stories.