Jemmie Robertson
American trombonist JEMMIE ROBERTSON is an active soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and teacher. He is pleased to be joining the music faculty at Eastern Illinois University in the Fall of 2009. He is a busy musician in the Chicago area where he has performed with numerous ensembles including the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Music of the Baroque, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Philharmonic, Chicagoland Pops, Illinois Philharmonic, Elgin Symphony, Rockford Symphony, Northwest Indiana Symphony, South Bend Symphony, Kenosha Symphony, Quad Cities Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Peoria Symphony, Lincoln Park Brass, Tower Brass and others. Jemmie joins the EIU faculty from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois where he has served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and taught Low Brass since 2005.
His debut solo CD, titled “A New Day Dawning” was released on the MSR Classics Label (MS 1182) in September 2008. The recording features recent and previously unrecorded works for Trombone and Piano (Yoko Yamada-Selvaggio, Piano).
Mr. Robertson is a founding member of ProBono (a Chicago based professional trombone quartet) and is also a member of the Artemis Brass. In the summers he enjoys performing with the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado where, in the summer of 2008, he appeared as a soloist performing the Albrechtsberger Alto Trombone Concerto.
In 2006, Mr. Robertson completed a DM degree in performance at Northwestern University where he studied with Chicago Symphony Orchestra trombonist Michael Mulcahy. While in residence, he conducted the Northwestern Trombone Choir and served as Assistant Conductor of the Northwestern Brass Choir.
Honors include being selected as a featured soloist and participant for the first Joseph Alessi Seminar in 1999 and then again at the 2006 Alessi Seminar in Fossano, Italy. In 1995, Mr. Robertson was the winner of the Rocky Mountain Concerto Competition. In the summer of 2000 he performed with the National Orchestral Institute where he worked extensively with the principal trombonists of the Boston, Baltimore, and National Symphony Orchestras. In 2004, Jemmie conducted and performed with the Northwestern Trombones at the International Trombone Festival in Ithaca, New York.
Mr. Robertson has previously been a member of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra (2000) and the U.S. Air Force Heritage of America Band (1996-1999) with whom he also performed extensively on Euphonium and Bass Trombone. He received a Master of Music from Yale University, where he studied with John Swallow and Scott Hartman, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Northern Colorado where he studied with Buddy Baker.
On July 7th, 2007 Jemmie and his wife Christine welcomed the arrival of their first child, James Donal Robertson.
In February 2007 Jemmie was honored to participate in the World Premiere performances of Pulitzer Prize winning composer John Harbison’s Umbrian Landscape with Saint with the Chicago Chamber Musicians.
In March 2008 Jemmie performed the Bourgeois Trombone Concerto with the Augustana Symphonic Band, directed by Dr. James Lambrecht, on their Midwest tour. In June 2008, Jemmie performed with the Cramer Memorial Trombone choir at the International Trombone Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah and joined that ensemble in performing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on the nationally broadcast program “Music and The Spoken Word”. In June 2009, Jemmie performed and participated in the Gene Pokorny Low Brass Seminar in Redlands, CA.
Jemmie is an Edwards Performing Artist and Clinician.
