Robert Cannon Ehle, violin

Biography

I was born in 1939 in Lancaster, PA. I taught music theory and composition and related subjects at the University of Northern Colorado for 43 years and I am now retired. I have composed chamber music for most instruments and have composed a number of symphonies and symphonic works. I specialized in teaching and composing electronic music for more than a half century and I started building music synthesizers in the early 1950s. I was research assistant at North Texas where I worked with Bob Moog and Merrill Ellis in building their electronic music studio.

My Ph.D. is from the University of North Texas and my bachelors degree is from Eastman in Rochester, N.Y.

I currently write for IGI Global (book chapters), and Quora, mainly on music theory and musical acoustics. Over the years I have published hundreds of essays, many of which can be found on Google or YouTube among others. Since retirement I have been doing research in the psychology of music perception and have written extensively about the subject. My current studies have to do with how the brain processes music and when this evolved.

My orchestral compositions have been performed and recorded by the Eastman Rochester Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Denver Symphony Orchestra, the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra, the Denver Community Arts Orchestra, the Greeley Chamber Orchestra and the UNC Symphony among others.

Some of my composition teachers were Samuel Adler, Martin Mailman, Louis Mennini, and Merrill Ellis. Some of my music theory teachers were Allen Irvine McHose, Robert Sutton, Gustav Friedrich Soderlund, Robert Ottman and R. Evan Copley who was my colleague for 40 years and from whom I learned a great deal.

My Rhapsody/Concerto was recorded in Taiwan by Doris Huang and my Gazals Symphony was performed many times in northern Colorado and recorded by the UNC orchestra under Russell Guyver. My Whole Earth Symphony and Passacaglia for Band were performed and recorded by the UNC winds. My Suites for jazz orchestra and Jazz Symphony were performed and recorded by UNC Jazz under Gene Aitken.

I traveled all over the globe to more than 60 countries collecting folk songs that I incorporated into compositions and I developed a quasi-minimalist, world music style that I used in many chamber music compositions, many of which have been recorded, some where I played piano parts.

My wife, Linda, is a fine organist who has played for many churches and my son R. Todd Ehle is YouTube's ProfessorV, teaching violin. He is Professor of violin and orchestra at Delmar College in Corpus Christi, TX.