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Linda Robbins Coleman is an internationally acclaimed composer especially in the areas of orchestra and chamber music. She served as the Composer-in-Residence with the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra for the 1994-96 seasons, the first Iowa woman to hold this position with any orchestra. She was invited back during the 2001-02 season to help the CRSO celebrate their 80th anniversary. During the 1995-97 seasons Coleman also became Composer-in-Residence with the Wartburg Community Symphony. A native of Des Moines, she is a graduate of Drake University and has studied with the Greek National Theatre. From 1977-97 Coleman was Composer-in-Residence for Drake Theatre, scoring thirty-five plays ranging from the ancient Greeks to the moderns.
An accomplished pianist, Coleman has been performing since the age of six and worked professionally as a jazz and classical soloist and accompanist. She was on the Iowa Arts Council Arts to Go performing artist roster with singer Nancy Cooper for five years touring with their program, Music for the Grand Salon.
She has been recipient of more than 60 commissions for compositions ranging from chamber to symphonic music, and from jazz to theatre and film. To date her music has been performed and broadcast in more than twenty-seven states in the USA, as well as Great Britain, Europe, Canada, and Mexico.
In 1987, Coleman co-founded the Iowa Composers Forum where she served as its original Executive Secretary and chief administrator for ten years. In 1981 she founded the Friends of Drake Arts and worked with promotion and community outreach for fifteen years at the university. As an educator, Coleman spent five years as a visiting artist teaching music composition at a magnet elementary school in Des Moines’s inner city. She was on the Iowa Arts Council's Artist in the Schools/Communities roster for fifteen years, performing residencies in many communities,
For twenty-nine years she served as research associate to Professor William S. E. Coleman, working on materials related to William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody and the 19th century Lakotas; the escape of the Danish Jews from Nazi persecution in 1943; and modern productions of ancient Greek plays by the Greek National Theatre. From 1988-2000 she served as research associate and copy editor for the book Voices of Wounded Knee, detailing the events and attitudes leading to the 1890 Massacre and the end of the Plains Indian Wars. It was published by the University of Nebraska Press in September, 2000, and is currently available at bookstores and online.
For the past thirty-two years she has been owner and president of Coleman Creative Services, working in music, promotion, marketing and publicity, desktop publishing, research, and consultation. She has served as author, copy editor, grantwriter, composer, educator, and coordinator on various projects for numerous organizations and groups around the USA and abroad. Additionally she has served as a caregiver to various elderly relatives for the past two decades.
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