Artist of the Month | April 2017

“Had a fun trip out to Donald Rubenstein’s art and music studio north of Santa Fe. Donald is both an accomplished musician as well as a visual artist and his studio was a perfect blend of his artistic passions… contained by walls…walls that don’t exist in Donald’s creative mind…come on inside! And after you watch the video, here’s the link to Donald’s ‘short, weird films’ he mentioned in the video. Click on “Film”, then scroll to the bottom of the page. Available only till April 30th.”

~ Ron Whitmore

About

DONALD RUBINSTEIN, composer, songwriter and interdisciplinary artist, made his musical debut at age 25 composing the score for George A. Romero’s cult classic, feature film, Martin. It was named one of the “Top 100 Coolest Soundtracks of All Time” by Mojo magazine (2002). Since then his work has included 27 CDs of original music, numerous film and television scores, three large-scale multi-media performance works, four books of poetry, and a recent directorial spate of seventeen, short, experimental films.

Fingers, a duet with guitarist Bill Frisell, was included on Jazziz Magazine’s 20th anniversary CD A Celebration of the Modern Era, along with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Tony Bennet and Charlie Haden. Rubinstein has collaborated closely with artists as varied as Terry Allen, Brother Blue, Ed Harris, Kiki Smith, Ra-Kalam Bob Moses, Robin Holcomb, and many others.

Donald Rubinstein was awarded a fellowship and residency, via nomination, from The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in 2014. He has been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and in multiple one-person gallery exhibitions. His most recent experimental film, “Cold City Heaven,” premiered at the Angelika Theater in Dallas in October 2016. There are two new Rubinstein CDs slated for release in 2017.

SELECTED QUOTES

“For sheer variety and entertainment, Donald Rubinstein’s novel, unpredictable one-man show is hard to match…stunning, house-shaking, hauntingly beautiful.” LA Weekly

“If I were a smarter human being I would now invent a word that would explain exactly how freakin’ cool and original in thought and execution Donald Rubinstein is with his music. His prolific discography is something you should take the time to explore, to discover the genius landscape that Donald Rubinstein has sculpted over the last few decades…This is the first time I ever used the word “important” to describe an album. You need to hear these songs.” Adobe Airstream