Scholar / pianist / media author Robert Winter began his life as a would-be athlete and science student at Coral Gables High School (Florida) and a physics major at Brown University. Following an epiphany at the end of his sophomore year, he earned his B.A. in Music, then an M.F.A. in Piano from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and a Ph. D. in the History & Theory of Music from the University of Chicago. Before joining the UCLA music faculty he spent three years in Europe on Fulbright-Hayes and Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation fellowships performing and researching his doctoral work on the sketches for Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131.
In the first fifteen years of his scholarly career, Winter authored, co-authored, or edited four major books on Beethoven and published a substantial number of influential articles on compositional process, performance practice, and Franz Schubert. His awards and honours include the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society in 1985, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1983 and the Frances Densmore Prize from the American Musical Instrument Association in 1990. He also served a term as an elected member of the American Musicological Society's Board of Directors.
In 1989 Winter’s career took a dramatic turn when he was invited by the Voyager Company to produce its first original interactive software title - today widely regarded as the first commercial interactive publication. As an instinctively multimedia performer and author, Winter’s programs on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (called “masterly” by the New York Times); Mozart’s “Dissonant” Quartet, and Dvorak’s New World Symphony have been hailed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek (where he was profiled as one of “50 to Watch” in cyberspace), U.S. News and World Report, Wired Magazine, People Magazine, and elsewhere as milestones in multimedia publishing.
Winter served as Chair of the Music Department in 1992-94 and Associate Dean for Technology and Curricular Innovation on the School of the Arts & Architecture from 1995-2000. In 1996 Winter was named to occupy the Presidential Chair in Music and Interactive Arts - the first such chair to be awarded in the arts at UCLA. From 1996-2000 he was the Founder / Director of UCLA's Center for the Digital Arts. Winter is that rare recipient of both of UCLA's two highest awards - the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006 and the Faculty Research Lectureship in the spring of 2010.
A decade ago Winter and his longtime collaborator Peter Bogdanoff began work on a platform that afforded the most open-ended yet integrated access ever to the exploration of music. This has culminated in Music in the Air (MITA), the first completely digital, integrated account of Western (and now Chinese and other) music. Further current and future projects include two interactive programs (Bach Stories - Five Fugal Tales; and How They Played Chopin; How We Play Chopin). Winter is also involved in upgrading and preparing for release more than thirty media projects and performances - including his now iconic program on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, whose history is documented in the newest revision of Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists published in 2014 by MIT Press - for release on laptops, iPads, iPhones, and other digital platforms.