Tobin James Mueller - collaborative and solo artist

Welcome to my website. Please start off by checking out my recordings. My latest is a jazz collaboration with saxophonist Woody Mankowski, The Muller's Wheel, and I'm very excited about it. Please check it out. Woody also played on Rain Bather, which won Best Album of 2009 (JazzChicago.net). I just purchased a new Steinway and am letting it inspire me to write pieces for an upcoming solo piano album (to complete the Trilogy started with Morning Whispers and 13 Masks), a Funk Project with Woody, and a favorite songs collection, Song of Myself, with me singing at the piano. I also continue to share early drafts and collaborative ideas on MacJams.com, from which many tunes on my A Bit Of Light album arose.

I have added photos to the website, which I sell to hotels and private collectors. I have begun to organize them into coherent collections, more will follow. And I've written an impressionistic version of my memoirs as a series of dreams (Book Of Dreams), which includes many illustrations.

I've gone through several periods of artistic discovery but remain dedicated to creating new musical expressions. (I can't remember the old ones so I kind of have to make up stuff.) I have a belief that the Internet will be a path to cooler projects and maybe even a blueprint to freer lives, but most of my beliefs end up being wishful thinking.

I've journeyed through musical theatre, jazz, progressive rock, classical orchestrations, fiction writing, politcal essays, domestic humor and blogging. Some of these I want to journey through again. I've written plays, ballets, film scores and children's music; poetry, historical fiction and video games. I dig it all. But I've always thought of myself as a composer, first. Currently, I continue to explore solo piano, rediscover the B3 organ, and enjoy life with Suzanne.

I've had the good fortune of working with tons of fine people, most of whom you'd never recognize, although I've recorded with Dave Brubeck, Ken Schaphorst, Donny McCaslin, Entcho Todorov, Dane Richeson, Janet Planet, among others, and played on stage with Maynard Ferguson and more. Five of my musical dramas were produced in Manhattan during the 90s, and my 2004 musical drama piece Runners In A Dream, set in the Holocaust, was part of the York Theatre new play series. In London, I was inducted into the United Nations’ 1994 Global 500 Roll of Honor for my work with youths and the environment. As the founder of ArtsForge, an award-winning online arts community (founded in 1998), I realize the power of the Internet to communicate across great distances, to cohere specialized communities and provide new audiences.

But the true highlights of my life have more to do with sitting in front of my new baby grand or communing with Suzanne when she gets home from work. As I struggle with the genetic lung disorder A1AD that threatens to shorten life a bit, moments at the keyboard become timeless and transcendent.

A lifetime ago, I attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Marquette University (in 1977, when they won the National Championship), and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, studying musical composition, physics and journalism. In all my artistic endeavors, no one ever asked to see a degree, but I'm glad I went nonetheless.

Member: ASCAP, Dramatists Guild (NYC). For more bio info on music, see MUSIC. Also: CDBaby.com.