Music by R.U.Meyer

My first composition was an operetta for four voices and guitar: My mother, my father, my brother and myself. It was for marionettes which I had made, and we performed it in our basement for my schoolmates. It was 1964 and I had yet to hear or see a real operetta. My junior-high music teacher gave me private lessons in music studies. She was a gospel organist. I continued writing short choral pieces and duets for harmonica and guitar. My father spent 1/2 hour every night after dinner playing these duets with me. Then I studied every book on orchestration I could get my hands on. My high school library had a score and a recording of The Flying Dutchman and Mathis der Mahler. I listened to them over and over. In college, I was introduced to Wozzek and another general music teacher took an interest. He wanted me to study the ragas of classical Indian music. He was the principal oboist for the New York Philharmonic. I changed my major from theater to comparative languages and finally to biology. I studied the complete Carcassi method for classical guitar. In grad school, studying botany, I became known for my ability to copy music and was employed by marching bands during football season for their half-time shows. I never completed my botanical studies and joined Local 802 as a music copyist and made my living as such for half-a-dozen years. The Salvation Army played from my scores on street corners. A large scale symphony which had taken several months to prepare was performed at the United Nations. My own composition for symphonic band—Canti Svizzeri—received a performance in Switzerland which was broadcast live over public radio. I had my fifteen minutes. I still write little pieces for this–and–that just because it amuses me. Why not?

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Clicking on any link below will take you to a music or performance video on YouTube. Or, you can go directly to our YouTube channel to see a full listing.

At this point, I can classify these works as belong to three different periods, each having a noticeably different style:

• 1970 to 1990
• 1990 to 2000
• 2000 to the present

Note: Some of the following works no longer use an opus number for identification. The year might refer to its original composition date. Or it might refer to its new date when a major rewrite occured.

Clicking the table header will result in the re-ordering of the entries.

• Op.61 One Vigil (1991)
• Op.62 Final Scene (1992)
• Op.73 While Again (1993) for symphonic band
• Op.80 While Away (1994) electronic realization
• Op.85 Walking Dances (electronic realization of "I Ticinesi")
• • No.2 [401] "Catwalk"
• Op.87 Tre Ragazzi (1995)
• Op.92 New Year's Eve / New Year's Day (1995)
• Op.95 Fantastic Dance (1995)
• Op.130 Nostalgic Dance No.4 (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh) [190]
• Op.131 Uncle John's Bells (percussion) [254]
• Op.144 Sea Shanty (piccolo and accordion) 2019