bio

Robert Humber (he/him) is a Canadian composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist. He has written and performed music for concert halls, films, dance, video games and interactive sound installations. Recently, his CMC Prairie Emerging Composer Prize-winning piece “warmth comes” was premiered by Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. A growing interest in the intersection between music and other artistic disciplines has led to such collaborations as to unwind a sea shell, a 25-minute experimental dance film in collaboration with Hilary Knee, Stephen Eckert and Giancarlo Aspiazu Delgado set to premiere at St. John’s Sound Symposium in July 2024. Robert has written music for two short films, both of which won the UBC POV Film Festival Award for Best Score. He served as assistant composer for the upcoming Bell documentary Shut Out. In 2022, he was commissioned to compose the 25-minute electronic work ‘fire howl’ for several dancers and Neighbourhood Dance Works. The piece was performed in various outdoor locations around Corner Brook, Newfoundland. He is currently completing a piece for violist Kate Read, and the Calgary-based Astralis Quartet.

As an arranger, Robert has written many creative arrangements of Beatles and Björk songs for Dark by Five ensemble. He arranged Andrew Staniland’s electronic film score “The Righteous” for cellist Vernon Regehr and Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. He has also made stripped-down arrangements of orchestral music for Kittiwake Dance.

Most of Robert’s live performing lives outside of the contemporary classical world. He has performed on a variety of instruments, and has accompanied plays, improvised alongside motion-capture virtual reality pieces (“Fyne’s Way Home”), and played with many singer/songwriter, folk and rock acts. He is currently working on completing his debut album under the singer-songwriter/lofi/chamber folk moniker “something softer.”

Robert graduated with a Master's Degree in Music Composition at University of British Columbia where he studied with Jocelyn Morlock, Stephen Chatman, Dorothy Chang and Keith Hamel. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Music Composition at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he studied with Andrew Staniland and Clark Ross.