Shirley Robbins Memorial Page
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About Shirley
Shirley was a master teacher of the Alexander Technique and a force in the evolution of Early Music. She was a faculty member of the Pomona College Theater Department for 18 years, where she established the Alexander Technique as standard training for theater majors. She also taught at the Scripps College Dance Department. The Alexander Technique is a method widely employed by premier theater, music, and dance schools in which the student learns kinesthetic observation, how thinking is expressed in movement, and the ability to make new choices in spite of established habitual patterns.
Shirley was a few months shy of 80 years old at the time of her death. Despite her seniority and two and a half year battle with cancer, she taught continuously. She was deeply committed to teaching and was much admired by her students. Many students reported that her work enabled them to re-evaluate self-limiting assumptions and make life-altering changes, both in their performance skills and in their personal lives. Shirley was recognized in 2006 by the American Society for the Alexander Technique for her decades of contribution to the development of the Alexander Technique.
Shirley was a recognized pioneer in the field of Early Music (medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque), devoting over five decades to bringing Early Music to life through performance and teaching. She was best known for enrolling scores of amateur musicians into the Early Music movement. In 2007, she became only the second person to receive the American Recorder Society’s Presidential Special Honor Award for her seminal role in teaching and performance of ancient music. For 25 years she was on the faculty of the USC Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts (ISOMATA), where she directed the influential summer workshop on Early Music and Dance.
The performance group that Shirley founded, Canto Antiguo, performed widely in the Southern California area. Canto Antiguo’s 1994 recording, Musical Traditions of the Sephardim, is available through Titanic Records. Shirley researched rare musical scores from the 13-16th century and introduced them to audiences for the first time. Her unique musical arrangements shaped contemporary concepts about authentic presentation of ancient music.
Shirley became involved in Early Music in the 1940s through her association with Bernard Krainis, co-founder of the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, which was in the forefront of the period-instrument movement. (She met her husband, David, through Krainis’ sister). Krainis, who died in 2000, is credited with bringing wider public attention to Early Music on the east coast and was a known recorder soloist. Shirley was inspired to follow suit when she migrated to California as a young woman.
Shirley settled in Claremont and began performing Baroque music. She arranged concerts with Carl Dolmetsch, the foremost recorder virtuoso whose family popularized the recorder. Although self-educated in music, Shirley was praised for her scholarship and sought after as a conductor of Early Music ensembles. President of Scripps College, Mark Curtis, said of her, “ Shirley is a creative person with great energy and vitality…and has full knowledge of her field.”
Max Krone, Dean of the Fine Arts Department at USC tapped Shirley to lead the summer Early Music program at USC’s Idyllwild campus in 1971. Under her direction, the program grew into national prominence with eminent faculty and a multidisciplinary curriculum. She staged ambitious musical and dramatic works such as the Son of Getron, a 12th century liturgical drama, and a 15th century Italian Ball that integrated historically accurate dance, music, theater, and food.
Her music students knew her as a demanding and dedicated teacher. Ken Sherman, director of the Malibu Recorder Workshop, where Shirley taught for many years, expresses a commonly held sentiment: “Shirley was a musical and personal inspiration to all of us and she will live on through all who were fortunate enough to associate with and learn from her.”
Shirley lived in Claremont for 62 years and was a mainstay of the community’s cultural life. She taught music to generations of Claremonters in her home, and was also known for hosting salon-type events that brought together a broad range of accomplished artists. She is survived by her daughter Karen, a lawyer residing in the Bay Area; her son Alan, a dentist in Chicago and his three children, Clare, Jack, and Molly; and her sister, Geri, a resident of Florida.
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When not tending her family, teaching, making music, sculpting, or painting, Shirley was in the garden. She loved gardening all her life.
