Pete Robbins

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Pete Robbins (born November 28, 1978) is a professional American jazz saxophonist and composer living in Brooklyn. He records for the Barcelona-based label Fresh Sound New Talent.

He was born in Andover, MA and graduated from Phillips Academy in 1997. In 2002, he graduated from the New England Conservatory and Tufts University and relocated to Brooklyn, NY in September 2002 ^[1]. He currently leads three groups: CENTRIC (w/ Sam Sadigursky, Eliot Cardinaux, Thomas Morgan, Dan Weiss); sILENT Z (w/ Jesse Neuman, Mike Gamble, Thomas Morgan, Tyshawn Sorey); and the PETE ROBBINS / MARIO PAVONE / TYSHAWN SOREY TRIO. These groups regularly play around New York at venues such as 55 Bar, Cornelia Street Café, Detour, Bowery Poetry Club, and The Tea Lounge. They have also toured around the East Coast and Europe, with yearly appearances at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival (2006, 2007, 2008) ^[2].

In 2004, Robbins curated a series of concerts at New York’s Cornelia Street Café, on behalf of the organization Music For America, dedicated to building political awareness and exposing the hypocrisy of Bush administration policies. Musicians including Dave Douglas, Uri Caine, Rodney Green and John O’Gallagher shared a bill with Robbins’ own band and the series was the featured in the Village Voice’s 2004 fall preview issue ^[3].

His work as a composer and bandleader recently earned him a 2006 Chamber Music America composition grant ^[4]. As part of this grant, Robbins was commissioned to adapt three compositions by the Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo ^[5].