Robert Mari lives in Shawnigan Lake, BC. Canada and San Miguel de Allende, GTO, México. He was born in Winnipeg Manitoba in 1958. He started playing the piano when he was 3 years old and by 5 he played some public performances. After 2 years in kindergarten he went to Woodhaven School until 1967 when the family moved to West Vancouver BC, Canada. In grade 5 in Westcot Elementary School he started to learn the Violin rekindling his love of music. He studied piano with a nun in West Vancouver at St. Anthony’s school and almost quit since the experience was so negative. Eventually going to Sentinel High school he conducted his first orchestra when he was 13 and found his love of music again. When not conducting he played piano (studying with Dr. Dan Bristow and Joyce Rawlings) and bassoon (studied with Christopher Millard). By the age of 15 he not only conducted the school orchestra but the Russian Orchestra of Vancouver and the Victoria Balalaika Orchestra (Victoria BC).
Eventually going to UBC in Vancouver and attaining a B Mus focusing on Orchestral and Choral Conducting with minors in Double Bass, Bassoon, Voice and Piano. He temporarily took over the UBC Symphony Orchestra when it’s conductor, Douglas Talney, took ill.
After UBC he spent one year in a special program with Vancouver Community College studying choral conducting with Jon Washborn.
He then attended the Peabody Conservatory (officially knows as The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University) for Masters and Doctoral work. His 5 years there were very intense conducting 18 full programs of orchestral music each year. During his time in Baltimore, Robert found he had an aptitude for computer programming and wrote software for the Computer Music Studio at Peabody. He also wrote and administration program for the Peabody Prepatory department that managed enrollement and classes for the students.
Robert switched from Music to Computers and moved to Toronto where he became internationally know for a particular Infrastructure Management software and when he moved to Victoria, BC, Canada, he started his own company, in 1995, specializing in configuration of that same product. He retired from the Business world in 2004 when he returned to be a musician.
During the past 20 years Robert has dedicated his musical talent playing Jazz and Tango Fusion on the Piano and then when he was Conductor and Musical Director of the Cowichan Consort Orchestra and Choir, he conducted, arranged music and composed. Recently he was the Conductor and Music Director for the ProMusica Youth Orchestra in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in 2021 until 2023.
He currently lives half of the year in Mexico in San Miguel de Allende.
Besides Conducting Robert loves to play the piano, tenor sax, contra bass and he is currently studying to play the duduk. He is addicted to playing Tennis and plays all year on his favorite surface — red clay.
For those that want to meditate, check out this site InsightTimer.com
These are some of the websites that he has created:
https://tennissanmiguel.com/
https://michaeljdorfman.com/
https://kymharvey.ca/
https://jemico.ca/
https://nonamari.com
Contact him if you wish:
