Early life and career Born in Berlin in 1931, Rutman's mother was a
Jewish actress and his father a
Bulgarian brownshirt who died in 1933. When the
Nazis came to power, he and his mother fled Germany, moving to
Warsaw in 1938 and then to Finland just before
Hitler invaded Poland. By way of Sweden, Rutman arrived in England in 1939 where he attended
refugee schools throughout
the Second World War. In 1952 Rutman returned to the U.S. and worked as a traveling salesman in
Dallas, Texas, before moving to Mexico City to enroll in art school. He married in Mexico, and the couple had a son, Eric. In 1962 Rutman returned to New York where he opened a gallery on West Broadway in Greenwich Village called "A Fly Can't Bird But A Bird Can Fly", which presented poetry, theater, music, and visual art as
multimedia events. and sculptor
Constance Demby, with whom he made his first
sound sculptures in 1966. He named one of his creations the steel cello, and another the bow chimes, describing both as "American Industrial folk instruments". CMPMC performances had a ritualistic quality that incorporated many non-musicians, such as video artist
Bill Etra who added visual elements to their shows. The band toured the East Coast, playing at several
planetariums in
Massachusetts, as well as
Lincoln Center, the
World Trade Center, and at the
United Nations Sculpture Garden in New York. Rutman told a reporter in 1974: The best way to describe our music is to call it "not music." You see, it often happens that when people hear us play, they say, either in anger or in delight, "That's not music!" It's somewhat akin to the paintings of
Jackson Pollock. When the art buffs first saw his work, with the paint drippings and all, they said, "That's not painting."
Steel Cello Ensemble As Rutman's instruments piqued the interest of aficionados in both visual art and
new music composition, his portfolio as an exhibition and concert artist grew. As art pieces, the steel cello and bow chimes toured to galleries and museums where
bows were on hand for anyone to play them. Though his instruments were tunable, Rutman had no formal musical training aside from sporadic childhood
piano lessons. He moved to Boston's then-bohemian
Cambridgeport neighborhood and disbanded the CMPMC to found a new, all-steel music group in 1976: the Robert Rutman U.S. Steel Cello Ensemble, whose members included Suzanne Bresler, Rex Morrill, Warren Senders, Jim Van Denakker, and David Zaig. A 1977 press release described the group and its instruments: The steel cello is 8ft tall and is made from a sheet of stainless steel anchored into a heavy iron stand. It supports one string, which when bowed creates a multitude of resonances, from delicate brittle sounds to deep rich tones. The bow chime, which is shorter, forms a horizontal curve which supports vertical rods, which when bowed produce complementary metallic tones. The Ensemble consists of one steel cello and three bow chimes and together create sounds equal in dynamics to an orchestra. The Ensemble toured North America, often playing at
science museums and art spaces, as well as concert venues. In 1977 they performed at
Harvard University's Science Center and at New York's
Museum of Modern Art. To further document and promote his work, Rutman founded his own label, Rutdog Records, on which he released albums by his Steel Cello Ensemble. Rutdog also released
Dorothy Carter's
psych-folk album
Waillee Waillee, on which Rutman backs the hammer dulcimerist on his steel cello. Rutman and Carter continued to collaborate for decades thereafter. Rutman's instruments were borrowed by American jazz musician
Sun Ra during his 1978 residency at the Modern Theater in Boston; Sun Ra (rather unsuccessfully) attempted to play both the Bow Chime and Steel Cello during the concerts. In the 1980s Rutman and his instruments began scoring theatrical works by
Euripides,
Shakespeare,
Coleridge,
Rilke,
Thoreau, and others. Some of the prominent venues in the early "European Days" included the
Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, the America Haus in Munich,
Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, the
Berlin Atonal, London's
Institute of Contemporary Arts, and Warsaw's
Palace of Culture and Science. In an interview shortly before leaving the U.S., Rutman shared his perspective on his instruments and music: He also re-incorporated traditional non-western instruments into Steel Cello Ensemble performances and recordings, including the
tabla,
Tibetan horn, and
didgeridoo. Because of the steel cello's mass, Rutman developed lighter weight instruments for impromptu shows. First came the buzz chime, a triangular wooden
drone instrument, which he added to his Steel Cello Ensemble. The styrophone is the exact opposite to the bow chime and the steel cello, which make a very full sound. Instead, the styrophone is like
Gänsehaut! It’s the opposite of beauty, it’s like really ugly and I like that. Throughout the 1990s Rutman continued to score theatre and film, including
Wim Wenders'
sequel to
Wings of Desire and
Heiner Goebbels' stage adaptation of
Walden. Among these are
Klaus Wiese's Nono Orchestra,
Wolfram Spyra and
Pete Namlook as the duo Virtual Vices, Other sculptor-musicians have designed and constructed their own variations of Rutman's instruments, such as the Dresden-based steel cello ensemble Stahlquartett. Rutman's instruments are in the collection of the
Smithsonian Institution.
Visual art In addition to his music and instruments, Rutman continued to produce and exhibit drawings, oil paintings, engravings and wire sculptures, examples of which can be seen on his website. ==Discography==