Robert Livingstone Aldridge (September 7, 1954 inRichmond, VA)^[1] is an Americancomposer,professor, and current Head of Composition professor, and former Director of Music at theMason Gross School of the Arts atRutgers University. He has written over eighty works fororchestra,opera,musical theater,dance, and various chamber ensembles that have been performed in the United States, Europe, and Japan.^[2] He is widely known for his operaElmer Gantry, based onSinclair Lewis's 1927novel of the same name.^[3] which was completed in 2007 and won Best Engineered Album (Classical) and Best Contemporary Classical Composition in the54th Annual Grammy Awards.

Aldridge holds degrees in both composition and English literature.^[4] Aldridge received a bachelor's degree in English literature from theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, a master's degree in composition from theNew England Conservatory of Music, and a doctorate in composition from theYale School of Music in 2000.

In November 2007, an opera titledElmer Gantry by Robert Aldridge and with alibretto by Herschel Garfein premiered in the James K. Polk Theater inNashville.^[5]

Parables also with a libretto by Herschel Garfein was a work commissioned by the Topeka Symphony. It premiered in May 2010.

He was professor of composition atMontclair State University in New Jersey. He was appointed director of the music department of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2012.^[6]

Robert Aldridge currently lives in Montclair, New Jersey with his wife Paula Stark, a landscape artist. They have one daughter, Micaela Aldridge (b.1994).

He has received numerous fellowships and awards for his music from theNational Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, theGuggenheim Foundation, theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters,National Endowment for the Arts, theNew York Foundation for the Arts, thePennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Massachusetts Artist's Foundation, theLila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund,Meet the Composer, theAmerican Symphony Orchestra League, the New Jersey Council on the Arts and theGeraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

• Official website
• Rutgers University profile
• 'Ep. 88: Robert Aldridge, composer' Interview by Tigran Arakelyan

• 1954 births
• American opera composers
• American male opera composers
• Living people
• Rutgers University faculty
• 20th-century American classical composers
• 21st-century American classical composers
• University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni
• New England Conservatory alumni
• Yale School of Music alumni
• Montclair State University faculty
• Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
• Classical musicians from Virginia
• 20th-century American male musicians
• 21st-century American male composers

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