© Jong Tang

Robin Holloway was born in New York City, but spent his young life in Germany, where he studied piano under Janet Holdorf until he was 14 years old. He moved back to the U.S. with his family and settled in Chicago when he was a freshman in high school, whereupon his piano study was interrupted, and a period of self-guided musical exploration began. After pursuing various other fields at the university level, including philosophy, theatre, German literature, Robin returned to intense musical study in both the jazz and classical domains. His teachers have included Allen Swain, Emilio DelRosario, Dmitry Rachmanov, Graham Scott, Laurence Hobgood and Peter Churchill. He recently completed his master’s degree from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he now resides.

Due to the rather eclectic combination of influences he has encountered over the course of his education, and life, Robin’s musical style is something of a moving target. He has been heavily influenced by classical music, as his father was an opera singer, and he was exposed to gospel, folk, country and jazz from a very young age. Other musical influences, including reggae, hip-hop, electronica, and soul are also quite fundamental to his musical outlook, and Robin is continually seeking new ways of combining these influences in composition and improvisation.

While studying in Chicago, Robin became involved in a number of diverse ensembles, including the Afro-Cuban band Orchesta Juvenile, several straight-ahead jazz bands, and a Serbian-influenced new-music ensemble. He has spent the last two years in Europe, exploring the jazz scene in Helsinki, Finland during an Erasmus year at the Sibelius Academy, and more recently becoming immersed in the vast musical landscape of London.

Robin Holloway is a musician whose voice has been maturing over the past several years, as experiences of all sorts, musical, cultural, intellectual and spiritual, have seeped into awareness. He remains committed to the integrity of the historic roots of all music, and interested in finding new ways of putting it all together.