Reginald R. Robinson

After the assembly, Reginald went home and began searching the encyclopedia for any information that spoke about Ragtime. Learning about the great ragtime composer Scott Joplin led him to ask his mother Janet about getting a piano. For Christmas that year she got him a small electronic keyboard in which he began to teach himself how to play.

In June of 1987 just before he graduated from 8th grade and his family moved across town, his mother purchased a real 88 note piano from a moving neighbor. His parents couldn't afford to get him piano lessons, so, he began teaching himself how to read and write music from studying out of school music books that were around his home and by comparing note for note ragtime transcriptions to faithful piano roll recordings of the same music. In 1988 he managed to get a job and paid for a few lessons with The American Conservatory of Music and, also briefly studied site reading with a teacher at a local piano retail shop down the road from his home.

In 1992 Reginald met McKinley Olsen while attending a GED program and Mckinley introduced Reginald to multi instrumentalist Ira Sullivan who connected Reginald (through Mckinley) to pianist Jon Weber who immediately befriended Reginald and helped him to record his first studio recording “The Strongman”. At McKinley’s request, Reginald took the demo to record producer Robert Koester who immediately signed him. Reginald recorded three CD’s for the Delmark Record label.

In 2004 Reginald received a fellowship Grant from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for his innovation in Ragtime music. Reginald released his fourth album Man Out of Time in 2006 and in the summer of 2007 he performed with Orbert Davis who arranged and conducted his Chicago Jazz Philharmonic Orchestra’s historical performance of “Concerto for a Genius” which consisted of four of Reginald’s original compositions from Reginald’s “Man Out of Time” album arranged for full orchestra.
In 2008 Reginald teamed with composer/arranger Kerwin Young who arranged two of Reginald’s original tunes for strings and flute.

Reginald recently performed with Accessible Contemporary Music. A group led by pianist/composer/arranger Seth Boustead who scored three of Reginald’s original
compositions for piano, strings and clarinet.
Reginald's latest music project called “Reflections” is a three disc set which features audio and visual performances from Reginald of music that he composed over the last twenty years.

Between recording, performing and composing, Reginald is at work on his most ambitious project, a documentary film about the history and development of ragtime music.

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