“Mirror becomes a razor when it’s broken. A stick becomes a flute when it’s loved.”
Flutist, Robert Cart, was born to a farm family in southern Indiana just outside of Deputy (population 86), and always sought broader musical opportunities, which he found in what was perhaps the least likely place in the world: New Jersey. As a child he knew he wanted more, and at the age of five discovered his musical spark when playing around on an old, out-of-tune upright piano in the back hallway of his grandmother’s home. His parents recognized his talent and sent him for piano lessons with the local ragtime pianist, Thelma Henry who is heard here playing Down Yonder. Mrs. Henry and Robert’s fifth grade band director, Mark Johnson, instilled in him an untamable joy for musical expression that persisted as a strong and completely incurable lifelong addiction to music. While his addiction may have begun at the age of five with piano, by fifth grade he was a clarinetist, by eighth grade a flutist, and by eleventh grade a bassoonist. In the midst of flute playing, every day Robert sang for his most captivated and appreciative audience, a herd of about 100 Polled Hereford cattle.
So, it was only natural that by the time he completed a Bachelor of Music in performance and reached graduate school at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, he was studying the leading tenor roles of Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner with the great soprano Klara Barlow (heard here singing Isolde’s Liebestod) and taking flute lessons with London Symphony Orchestra’s principal flutist Peter Lloyd (heard here playing John Williams’ flute concerto with the London Symphony), while pursuing a Master of Music degree in performance. In 2001, he somehow found himself completing his Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Maryland College Park.
By the 1990’s, already far from being on the southern Indiana farm, Robert performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, with the Indianapolis Symphony, and eventually performed at Tanglewood, the Ravello Festival in Italy, and Wolftrap. At the age of 28, excited for his first trip abroad, he expedited the processing of his first passport, flew to London’s Gatwick Airport on Easter Sunday, took the train from Victoria Station to Ipswich, and then traveled by bus to Aldeburgh, where he performed at the Britten-Pears School as part of the Aldeburgh Festival.
In 2010, Robert began flute studies with Gary Schocker and a lifelong collaboration with pianist, Regina DiMedio Marrazza. In short time, Robert made his solo flute debut at Carnegie Hall, became a Powell Flutes Artist, a Universal Edition composer and arranger of flute music, and a recording artist on solo flute albums for Albany and Centaur Records; he also recorded an album of classical Latin American song for Centaur, entitled Serenata Mexicana. He made his solo flute debut at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, performed solo recitals at the Philips Collection, Alice Tully Hall, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and the Whitehouse. He played at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and at one point even performed Borne’s Carmen Fantasy simultaneously as flute and tenor soloist with an orchestra of 125 players to a packed audience in Shanghai, China.
Though inspired by Mozart, Beethoven, Prokofiev, and the great French flute composers, Robert realized the importance of contemporary composers and their work to the future of western art music: in fact, all composers were modern at some point in history. So, he commissioned new works by Jennifer Higdon (Nocturne for flute and piano), Gary Schocker (Always and Forever, Headstand/Cartwheels and Three’s Company), Roger Hudson (The Witty Sayings of Yogi Berra), Zach Gulaboff Davis (Whirlwind Variations for flute, viola, and cello), and Edgar Girtain IV (Quiet, Please!), which he premiered at Carnegie Hall, the American Cathedral (Paris, France), the Philadelphia Ethical Society, and the Mid-Atlantic Flute Convention. He also premiered over 40 chamber and orchestral works and recorded works by Daniel Dorff, David Loeb, and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson for the first time. Continually striving for a more exuberant musical experience and ever seeking to surround himself with great music and great musicians, Robert continued his lifelong addiction to music at the Atlantic Music Festival where he was flutist and coordinator for the Contemporary Music Ensemble. Later, he began spending his summers as flutist and flute faculty at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan. He was also founding flutist of both PhillyQ, a Philadelphia-based woodwind quartet, and Éxi Chéria, a flute, viola, and cello chamber ensemble. Robert taught as a university professor for over twenty years For fifteen of those years he also served in leadership positions, including college of the arts dean, school of music director, and music department chair.
At the age of twenty-five, Robert met his life-long partner and eventual husband Russell, the most creative computer scientist, author, father, homeschool teacher, guitarist, artist, and husband you’ll ever meet. They adopted a beautiful baby boy, Vincent, from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and together they (but mostly Russell) nurtured Vincent’s passion for music and violin playing, sending him off to study music with world-renowned violinists Elmar Oliveira, Rudolph Koelman, Schmuel Ashkenasi, Glen Dicterow, and Michael Ludwig. They always maintained a robust family of loving pets that included, but never all at once, the cats Elsa, Fatty Acids, Moses, and Ralph, and the dogs Bill, Desi, Emmett, Mattie, Rothko, and Taffy. There may have been some goldfish along the way, too.
Today, Robert is excited to serve as the Executive Director of the Marcel Moyse Society and as secretary of the Board of Directors for the Flute Society of Washington (DC). He also serves on the New Music Advisory Committee of the National Flute Association, and has published several articles centered on the uses of the bel canto singing tradition in flute pedagogy with international journals, including Pan Journal of the British Flute Society and The Flutist Quarterly of the National Flute Association.
He loves vintage musical instruments for their rich history and colorful tone, and primarily plays a vintage Powell flute made in 1938 by Verne Q. Powell for Philadelphia Orchestra flutist Joseph LaMonaca and a vintage 1972 custom made grenadilla Powell piccolo. But, he also owns a slew of custom Haynes flutes dating from the 1940’s and the 1960’s. His recently acquired 1907 cocuswood Rudal, Carte & Co. flute is his new love, and when he’s not too frustrated by the open G#, Robert also enjoys playing his Rudall, Carte & Co. piccolo made in 1927 by Mr. Atkins for Mr. L.J. Ford of Nottingham. And, yes. There is a distant ancestral relationship to Richard Carte (originally without the “e”) of Rudall, Carte & Co. Flutes and his son Richard D’Oyly Carte of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in London.
Robert is a Powell Flutes Artist.