Robert Carl

[3] His music finds its roots in the spirit of eclectic juxtapositions, transcendentalism, and experiment embodied in the output of Charles Ives and other American "ultramodernists", including Carl Ruggles.

A history major as an undergraduate at Yale University, he has felt that the musical past is a fertile source to be manipulated for new expressive purposes.

Time/Memory/Shadow (1988) is a double trio (piano quintet and harp) based on a march written in the composer’s adolescence, which is slowly “excavated” in the course of the piece, and only revealed at the end.

In American Music in the Twentieth Century, critic Kyle Gann described Carl's more recent style: "(he) has settled into a more serene, meditative idiom, but still with a dissonant edge.

"[5] More recent works that represent this approach include The Wind’s Trace Rests on Leaves and Waves (2005) for string quintet (premiered by the Miami String Quartet and Robert Black); Marfantasie (2004) for electric guitar and large ensemble; Shake the Tree for piano four-hands (2005); A Musical Enquiry Into the Sublime and Beautiful (2006–07) for chamber orchestra; La Ville Engloutie (2007) for wind ensemble; Fourth Symphony (2008);[6] The Geography of Loss (2010) for soprano, baritone, chamber chorus, and instrumental octet; and Piano Quintet, "Search" (2012).