Stardrive

Rob Mason was an early cross-genre contemporary classical electronic composer. As a teenager he studied privately with William Sydeman, Edgar Varese and Eric Salzman, attended the Mannes Music School, the original NYC High School of Music & Art, Oberlin Conservatory (B.M.) w/ Richard Hoffman, the NYU Dept. of Intermedia w/ Morton Subotnick and the Columbia/Princeton CMC w/ Charles Dodge.

As a young man, he built one of the first polyphonic synthesizers and formed Stardrive, a group that presented his unique compositional approach to electronic fusion music. He was among the first to perform at the Kitchen at the seminal Mercer Arts Center, and was the only performer to ever concertize at the Hayden Planetarium, with his synthesizer directly connected to the Zeiss Star Machine. Jac Holzman signed him to Elektra Records to record one of the first albums to feature a lead synthesizer, as well as one of the first to include Steve Gadd and Michael Brecker. He was later signed to a double contract on CBS Records and Columbia Masterworks.

Later he designed, built and operated the legendary RPM Studios in Greenwich Village, during which time he also created ambient multichannel sound installations at MOMA and the Guggenheim in NYC, deploying his custom-built SoundMurals ribbon speakers.

Now Mason has established the RPM Commissioning Fund to bring new post-genre contemporary classical electroacoustic music into the world from the next generation of composers in the field.