Bobby Previte- One Page Biography

Bobby Previte, in his travels all over the globe, has moved thousands through his music. Brought up on Soul and Rock, he studied formally at the University of Buffalo, where faculty and guest teachers included the new music pioneers John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Jan Williams. He moved to New York City in 1979 and began a long association with the leading lights of the “Downtown” scene.

Widely hailed for his electrifying drumming and his stunning and “unclassifiable” music, he has received three NEA grants for composition, two grants for composition from NYFA, grants from Meet the Composer, NYSCA, the Jerome Foundation, The Shifting Foundation, and The Steele Foundation. Previte has been five times a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and has appeared in numerous books on music. He has been interviewed on Terry Gross’ national radio show “Fresh Air,” appeared with William Shatner on “Saturday Night Live” and was “the drummer” in Robert Altman’s landmark film, “Short Cuts.”

Articles have been written about him in most of the major publications of the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Der Welt, Sydney Morning Herald, Le Monde, Newsweek, People, and Rolling Stone. He has conducted master classes in Istanbul, Perth, Lucerne, The New School, and the Eastman School of Music.

Previte now concentrates on The Constellations Ensemble, a chamber group touring the multi-media show, “The 23 Constellations of Joan Miró,” Dialed In, a solo electronic drum show, The Coalition of the Willing, a guitar quartet featuring Charlie Hunter, Stephen Bernstein and Jamie Saft, Strike, a new quartet with organist Marco Benevento and two saxophones, Groundtruther, a duo with Hunter, and The Beta Popes, a power trio with Skerik and Saft. He and writer/director Andrea Kleine are at work on The Separation, an evening length piece dealing with the role of religion in society. Based on the 15th century composer Guilliaume Dufay’s Missa Sancti Jacobi and written for early music pioneers the Rose Ensemble with electric band, The Separation will open at The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in February 2007 and travel to Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY. In 2006 Previte will tour Europe three times, the USA twice, and release three new recordings—The Coalition of the Willing and Dialed In, both on Ropeadope Records, and Altitude, the final CD in the Groundtruther trilogy, on Thirsty Ear.

“Previte is a serious composer with the heart of a roadhouse rocker.”—Village Voice

“Previte’s music is thoroughly, stubbornly and distinctly his own...the music copies nothing, and is utterly original.”—The New York Times

“His ensembles speak in visionary tongues.” — The New Yorker

“It (The 23 Constellations) updates the very spirit of western composition” Gramophone

“Although Bobby Previte is a great drummer, his pen appears to be mightier still.”— Downbeat

“Previte's music rolls along like an 18-wheeler eating up Interstate 15 through the Arizona-Nevada desert.”— CD Review

“Bobby Previte is in many ways the archetypal 21st Century Musician: open-eared, adventurous, uncategorizable, technically flawless.” — The Penguin Musician’s Guide

“He can break your heart with one cymbal crash.” — Jazziz