Rob Landes

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Robert "Rob" Landes (born March 14, 1985) is an American violinist, music arranger, and entrepreneur. Using the violin, Landes produces song covers with looping pedal effect to create complex arrangements of songs. He has worked on a number of popular songs including violin covers of Imagine Dragon's Radioactive, Ed Sheeran's Shape of You and Adele's Hello. Landes is most known for his looping cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", a video which has over 8 million views on YouTube.

The response following the release of his Hallelujah cover was instrumental to Landes’ reputation in the music industry. The impact of the video boosted his career and within a short period of time, Landes was opening shows for names in the industry, including Rachel Platten, American Authors, T-Pain, and Jason Derulo. Soon afterwards, he began his own music tour and to date, he has performed at the Sundance Film Festival, twice at the New York Fashion Week and has also completed international appearances in Asia and Africa where he made solo performances. Based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, Rob Landes is signed to ARK Studios Media Group.

Early life

Rob Landes was born in Provo, Utah to a large musical family. His grandmother bought him a violin for Christmas at the age of 3, and he began taking private lessons in Orem.[1] Landes later admitted in an interview that his mother had forced him to take up violin lessons and it wasn't until he was 10 that he began to enjoy playing the violin, at which time he gave his first ever solo recital in front of an audience. Two years later, on the 2nd of August 1997, Landes performed with the Disney Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra in the Hollywood Bowl concert held in Los Angeles. The performance was premiered on Disney Channel in an hour-long special. Landes was one of the 82 musicians out of 850 candidates aged 8 to 12 who were selected from auditions held around the country to be part of Disney's Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra.

At age 12, he founded a piano trio with two other boys of the same age - Danny Gledhill and Philip Erickson. Gledhill played the piano, Erickson was on the cello while Landes stuck to his violin, and the group named themselves the Timpanogos Trio. The trio was soon performing classical and chamber music at special occasions and private events including church meetings, wedding receptions and a concert at Brigham Young University. Landes would perform with the group all through his teenage years. At 13, Rob Landes competed in the Utah Symphony Youth Guild music competition alongside fellow Timpanogos Trio member - Danny Gledhill, the pianist. Landes came in first place and was rewarded with a solo performance alongside the Utah Symphony. In his debut performance, he performed the first movement of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto in g minor.

Music career

Landes went on to compete in and win a number of music competitions both within and outside the state of Utah. He performed as a soloist with numerous groups on local and state levels such as the Utah Valley Symphony, Brigham Young University Chamber Orchestra, Brigham Young University Philharmonic and San Diego Chamber Orchestra. While in the position of a first violinist for the BYU Chamber Orchestra, Landes performed in over twenty cities throughout central and southern regions of the European continent. Landes also performed as a concertmaster of the same orchestra to a sold-out audience in New York's Carnegie Hall. While Landes was with the Timpanogos Trio, the group was coached by a number of notable music teachers in the area. They worked with Diane Baker Selheim, a faculty member of the Brigham Young University music department, Roger Drinkall, a music teacher in BYU and Lois Stout, head of the Timpangos Chamber Orchestra. Outside his piano trio, Landes was instructed by equally reputable music teachers like Vesna Gruppman, Pamela Frank, Guarneri Quartet, Sylvia Rosenberg, Sergiu Luca, Cho-Liang Lin, Ying Quartet and Arnold Steinhardt.

Landes was awarded a full scholarship to attend Brigham Young University at the completion of a two-year church mission which he served in Fresno, California. The scholarship covered his full term at Brigham Young University where he earned a bachelor's degree in Music, after which he was awarded a full scholarship to attend Rice University where he earned a master's degree in the same course. Landes also attended the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua County, New York and was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music School in Lenox, Massachusetts.

It was during his time at Rice University that Landes picked up an interest in creating violin covers of songs. He started out with covering rock and pop music and it wasn't until he graduated from Rice and returned to Salt Lake City that he began experimenting with the loop pedal to create complex arrangements of music in his renditions. The looping effect allows Landes to perform another tune on top of a recorded section of a song. In 2015, Landes teamed up with fellow musician and pianist Aubry Pitcher to create a violin looping cover of Leonards Cohen's popular "Hallelujah," a cover which earned him the award for "Best Instrumental" at the 2015 Utah Music Awards.

Achievements

Landes' "Hallelujah" cover was written about in several newspapers and blogs. The San Francisco Globe called it “a stunning rendition,” while Faithtap, an inspirational entertainment website praised the cover, describing it as “an infusion of timeless song writing and a piece of modern music technology that is so refreshing to listen to.” In a similar vein, Ingenioso.tv described Landes and his partner in the video, “Their rendition sounded absolutely heavenly, like a piece of classical music — they played quite masterfully.”

Rob Landes opening for T-Pain in Lehi, UT in 2015

Along with performances in Asia and Africa, Landes has opened for the rock band American Authors, rapper T-Pain, and pop singers Rachel Platten and Jason Derulo. In March 2016, Landes was voted as CVX Live’s “Next Big YouTuber Contest” by judges and fans. In February 2016 and later in September of the same year, during the New York Fashion Week, Landes performed for numerous designers including Aleksandra Salo with his own original music which had been produced by his record label, ARK studios.

Landes was also featured at the Sundance Film Festival where he performed with Charlie Colin, founder and former bassist for the band Train.

References

This article "Rob Landes" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Rob Landes. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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