“Composer, instrument builder,
avant-garde cabaret master and all-purpose madman…”
--Rick Massimo, The Providence Journal, June 8th, 2006
Photo by Sheri Ellen Jobe
Steven Jobe has played music since the
late nineteen-sixties when he played electric bass in a rock band with his high school
friends back in Ohio.
Since that time he studied viola and Medieval music,
earning a couple of degrees along the way (B. Mus., Rhode Island College, 1982; M.A.,
The Ohio State University, 1984).
Settling in Providence, Rhode Island in 1984, he has continued to explore
traditional and historical music on the viola, hurdy-gurdy and bassoon. In the process,
he has collaborated with such musicians as accordionist/composer
Alec K. Redfearn, harmonica
virtuoso Chris Turner,
violinist Laura Gulley, cellist Rob Bethel and vocalist Ellen Santaniello.
He has appeared in various local productions, ranging from A Christmas Carol
at Trinity Repertory Co. through the Rhode Island School of Design’s Winter-session “Cabaret”
and The Pan-Twilight Circus Theatre.
Composing since 1990, Jobe’s works include an opera, Jeanne d’Arc (1993)
and music for dance, Bosch’s Garden (2001). He composed Four Movements for
string quartet and soprano in 2005, and was subsequently commissioned to compose the
Concerto for Bassoon with strings, harp and celesta. That piece had its premiere
in June 2006 with bassoonist Jim Morgan as soloist.
Beginning in 2000, Jobe commissioned the design and construction of several
large-scale instruments, including the Bosch Hurdy-Gurdy. Ten feet long with three wheels and an
octave-and-a-half keyboard, it will be integral to his work in the near future.