ROBERT RAY travels this nation and abroad conducting his legendary compositions, Gospel Mass and He Never Failed Me Yet. He regularly travels to Europe as the clinician of African American Spirituals and Gospel Music. Dr. Ray is Professor of Music at the University of Missouri at St. Louis and the Director of the In Unison Chorus for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
As a pianist, he has performed as a soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic, the Champaign-Urbana Symphony and others. He was privileged to have been the accompanist for the late outstanding and legendary singers Robert McFerrin and Dr. William Warfield.
He annually conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, along with the Symphony's In Unison Chorus in a special St. Louis style "Gospel Christmas" and Black History concert. Dr. Ray had the pleasure of conducting the orchestrated version of his Gospel Mass twice at Carnegie Hall as well as with numerous symphonies in the United States. Recently, he conducted the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in a premier performance of where the orchestra version of his Gospel Magnificat.
Choruses under his direction have appeared in concert with Ossie Davis, Max Roach, the late James Cleveland, Edwin Hawkins, and many other recording artists. Dr. Ray has served as the Repertoire and Standards Chair for Ethnic Music and Multi-Cultural Prospectives for the American Choral Directors Association (Southwestern Division) and has lectured and led clinics at numerous universities and colleges, as well as MENC, ACDA, and IAJA conventions.
In 2005, he conducted an Europa Cantat workshop in Barcelona, Spain with over 300 singers and in April 2007, he was invited by "A Coeur Joie Alsace" in Eastern, France to conduct a three concert tour featuring his "Gospel Mass". The fall of 2009, he will return to Italy to conduct workshops on Spirituals and Gospels and travel to Southern France in 2010 to perform his Gospel Mass.