Roberto Sierra, the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities, will retire at the end of the fall 2021 semester after twenty-nine and a half years at Cornell University. Hailing from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, Roberto joined the faculty in 1992 as a pioneering composer whose music frequently synthesized Caribbean and European musical traditions. Over his nearly three decades at Cornell, Roberto contributed profoundly to the musical, intellectual, and convivial life of the Department of Music. We will greatly miss his creative spirit, quick wit, and erudite conversation.
Roberto earned degrees from the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, the University of Puerto Rico, the Royal College of Music in London, and the University of London, where he studied composition with Jeremy Dale Roberts. He pursued post-graduate studies in electronic and computer music at the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht in 1979, and from 1979 to 1982, at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg with the renown composer György Ligeti. Roberto’s first major orchestral composition, Júblio, was performed at Carnegie Hall by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in 1987, for which he later served as Composer-in-Residence. Numerous significant commissions, performances, recordings, and accolades followed. Select highlights include: serving as Composer-In-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra (2000-2001); the 2002 performance of his Fandangos by the BBC Symphony Orchestra for The Proms in London; the commission of his Concerto for Saxophones and Orchestra by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for James Carter (2002); the 2009 Grammy nomination for his Missa Latina “Pro Pace” for best contemporary composition (recorded on the Naxos label by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Chorus); and receiving the 2017 Tomás Luis de Victoria Prize, the highest honor given in Spain to a composer of Spanish or Latin American origin.
Roberto caps his career at Cornell with further spectacular honors: winning the 2021 Latin Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for “Sonata Para Guitarra” (and sharing the virtual Latin Grammy stage with fellow Vega Baja artist, Bad Bunny), and being elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters.
While achieving international success as a composer, Roberto was also fervently committed to the advancement of the Department of Music at Cornell. He served as Chair from July 2008 to June 2011, deftly navigating the Department through the difficulties of the Great Recession; and he developed and regularly taught the Department’s undergraduate course on the Music of Latin America.
But his lasting legacy as a professor at Cornell will be the astonishing forty-three graduate student committees on which he served. His impact on generations of students at Cornell is best represented in their own words offered below. The faculty join with the voices of these alumni to congratulate Roberto on a stellar career at Cornell University, and to wish him continued success in the years to come.
“Professor Sierra was a great mentor and committee member. I worked with him closely throughout my doctoral career, and his compositional guidance helped me to broaden my creative skills in meaningful ways. I particularly worked with him on my orchestral pieces, which tremendously benefited from his insights and expertise. Moreover, through our conversations on postcolonialism and identity, he led me to expand my research focus in ways that I have continued exploring after graduation. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to a fabulous composer and mentor. Wishing Professor Sierra a wonderful time ahead.”
--Can Bilir (DMA 2019), Visiting Researcher and Artist, Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology at Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand
“Roberto Sierra is one of the most remarkable composers of our time and all-together a captivating personality. Studying and spending time with him was profoundly meaningful for me as a musician and as a Latin American student at Cornell. Although my major concentration was musicology, I worked closely with Roberto during my comprehensive exams as I was composing and arranging “Palonegro-ing”, a piece for my Latin band. To say that he unveiled a world of musicianship I could not have conceived otherwise would be an understatement. Now that I perform that composition regularly and that it has become somewhat of a signature piece with a life of its own, I am grateful for Roberto’s generosity and insight, which certainly went beyond the notes in the music score.”
--Sergio Ospina Romero (PhD 2019), Assistant Professor of Music, Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University
“Professor Sierra is an amazing composer, teacher, and critical thinker. It was an honor to be his student, and I am eternally grateful for his exceptionally high standards which helped so many students achieve great things. I learned so much from him, and I'm wishing him the best in his retirement.”
--Christopher Stark (DMA 2013), Associate Professor of Composition, Washington University
"Roberto Sierra instilled in me the invaluable lesson to trust my own convictions as a composer, and not to worry what others, even my own teachers, might think of what I wrote. He set the stakes high for us with always candid critique that helped me to focus on why what I'm writing really matters. These are lessons that take hold and grow over years, and I hope to impart now to my students. Congratulations on your retirement, Roberto!"
--Eric Nathan (DMA 2012), Associate Professor of Music, Brown University
“I first met Roberto Sierra while working on my masters, when he was a visiting professor at Yale. His seminar on Ligeti's music was a transformative experience in my development, and was most of the reason I was curious about journeying to the distant land of upstate NY to study at Cornell. Lessons with him were a challenging exercise in constantly holding myself to his rigorous creative standards; along with intense lessons interrogating my musical ideas, he also welcomed me and my fellow grad students into his lovely home where he and his wife Virginia would cook amazing dinners for us. Something for which I will always be grateful is the considerable time he took to mentor me for job talks on the academic market (‘if you want to succeed, you must focus!’). Congratulations on your retirement, Professor Sierra!”
--Stephen Gorbos (DMA, 2008), Associate Professor of Music Composition and Theory at The Catholic University of America in the Rome School of Music, Drama and Art
