Staff accompanist B.J. Robinson introduces the chamber singers during the annual POPS concert in Mayan Hall. Photo by Thomas Contant.
B.J. Robinson was born to be a conductor.
“There’s family videos of me as an infant with classical music playing on the radio and waving my arms around and smiling and loving it,” he said.
Perhaps he was also born to be a baritone vocalist, dancer, writer, actor, pianist and TV host. More likely, he worked hard to become all those things and more.
Robinson is an SWC staff accompanist and hosts “Spectrum” on KPBS, a television series that celebrates the arts in San Diego County.
A New Jersey native, Robinson said he was drawn to music from day one and his passion only grew as he got older. He moved to San Diego in 2009. He ended up in Chula Vista and joined the SWC concert choir where Dr. Teresa Russell noticed his potential. Robinson said it was a life-altering meeting.
“After just a couple of weeks of singing with them, Dr. Russell invited me to come stop by during the day to try out chamber singers,” he said. “I joined Chamber (Singers) and (Jazz Ensemble) then just started helping out a little bit more rather than just standing by and singing. I would ask if it was okay if I put a little choreography into one of the songs, or if I could help conduct a song.”
After three semesters, Robinson was offered a job as a staff accompanist and continued to work alongside Russell.
“With chamber singers, Russell basically mentored me into allowing me to continue to expand my set of abilities in terms of music and performing and directing,” he said. “She also helped me to become a voice instructor. So that’s another thing I do now, I teach voice lessons.”
Choir student Blanca Burke said she enjoyed working with him.
“He has this charisma that he can project what he wants and how he wants it to be projected,” she said. “He’s firm, but he’s funny. I think most of us want to work with him. His personality is always fun.”
Being younger than the average instructor helped Robinson look less intimidating to his students.
“For a while, I felt that being younger was a disadvantage,” he said. “I felt that I would have to try harder for people to take me seriously. But I guess it has turned around over the last four years. I’m a little more relatable to the students. It became this advantage that I didn’t expect it to be.”
Robinson started teaching for a youth theater company in La Jolla in 2012, when he was contacted by KPBS to host “Spectrum.”
“Last year, a parent from the company (who) works for KPBS approached me (and said) they were looking for musicians to work with for a commercial series all about arts and music,” he said. “A small crew came (to SWC). They filmed us during rehearsal and I did a little interview talking about the arts, that aired last November.”
In March, Robinson got an email from the director of programming at KPBS about hosting “Spectrum.”
“I went through the process of interviewing, screen tests, shooting a couple of practice episodes,” he said. “Then in April, they called me and offered me the job of hosting the show.”
Robinson said being the host of a television show is surreal.
“I’m still getting used to it and taking it in,” he said. “When people ask me what I do, the last thing I mention is the TV show. It’s not that I forget about it. I just don’t think of myself as a TV host primarily. I mention the college, the youth theater company, and it’s like ‘oh yeah, I’m also hosting a show on KPBS.’”
Robinson said he has a large amount of control over the show and the atmosphere on set is very easy going.
“My producer will pick four stories for an episode and send them to me, then I get to approve them,” he said. “Once that’s done, a team of writers put together the script then send that to me and I get to approve the script. If I want to make any changes to the script, I’m allowed to. Once we get in the studio and we’re on set, it’s a lot like being (on campus), only I get to be more in the student role. I’m sitting and waiting while people are setting up, people are asking me if I want coffee or water. It’s really relaxed and it’s really fun. It only takes not even an hour to shoot an episode so we get a lot of work done pretty fast. I’m only in there one day a week, so it works out with all my other running around.”
Russell met Robinson’s production staff at his viewing party, who said working with him was amazing.
“They were delighted that he stepped in,” she said. “He has brought a lot of energy and charisma to the show. That seems to be the consensus most of the time.”
Robinson says the feedback serves as motivation to continue pursuing a career in the arts. He encouraged students to stick with what they love to do.
“Follow your dreams,” he said. “If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, trust yourself and go for it. You never know what could happen. I never saw myself teaching in a classroom, having a group to choreograph, hosting a TV show. But here I am. It’s all a big dream come true and it’s still going.”
