Pianist/vocal coach and conductor, Casey Robards, has given recitals throughout the United States, Europe, Central and South America and Asia.

Robards’ 2021-23 recitals include duo programs with Ollie Watts Davis, LaToya Lain, Karen Slack, Charis Peden, Courtney Huffman, Kenneth Overton, Brian Downen, Salley Koo and Bernhard Scully. Recent projects include recording Carmina Burana and Patterson’s Gloria with the National Chorale, premiering This Little Light of Mine - an opera based on the life of Fannie Lou Hamer with Santa Fe and Kentucky Opera. Robards made her Carnegie Hall debut in November 2017 with baritone Christiaan Smith in a program singing popular Top 40 songs as art song. She currently tours with singer LaToya Lain in a “Narrative of a Slave Woman,” a dramatic and moving lecture-recital formatted program of Negro spirituals and Ollie Watts Davis in an art song recital “Toward Justice and Shared Humanity: Art Song of Black Composer as Lens, Language, Vision and Hope.”

Robards’ emerging career as a conductor includes guest conducting with South Bend Lyric Opera, Ensemble Concept 21, MOSI (Music On Site, Inc.) and productions of Die Zauberflöte, La Traviata, and La Bohéme as Main Stage conductor at the Bay View Music Festival. She was music director for Derek McPhatter’s “Water Riot in Beta: A Cyberpunk Rock Opera” a music-theater work that follows a troupe of water rights activists. Grounded in contemporary issues including climate anxiety and eco-grief, Water Riot in Beta draws on the under-acknowledged legacy of Black voices in Punk, Electronic, and experimental contemporary music production. Robards was associate music director of the world premiere of “BOUNCE: The Basketball opera” co-produced with Ardea Arts and Univ. of Kentucky.

Robards has special interest in piano and vocal music by Black composers, having experience in Black sacred music genres. She is the foremost expert on the life and music of John D. Carter (1932-1981). Dr. Robards wrote a chapter on collaborative piano for “So You Want to Sing Spirituals” published by Rowman & Littlefield.  Interested in the intersection of music and social justice, Robards has created benefit recitals for MUSICAMBIA, a non-profit organization that creates music conservatories in prisons. 

Currently on the faculty of the University of Illinois, previous appointments include vocal coaching and collaborative piano at Indiana University, Oberlin Conservatory (postdoc) and Central Michigan University. She has been on the faculty of the Bay View Music Festival since 2008.

Robards was pianist on three recent CD releases: “Botanica: music for oboe and English horn” with Sara Fraker (MSR Classics), “Chinese Fantasies” with violinist Fangye Sun (Blue Griffin) and “Figments Vol 3” (Navona Records) with John Dee, oboe and Bernhard Scully, horn. With stage director, Nick Gisonde and soprano, Risa Harman, Robards created a “Shakespeare Cabaret,” an interdisciplinary theatrical project with contemporary art song by Glen Roven.

Robards received the Henri Kohn Memorial Award for outstanding achievement at Tanglewood Music Festival. As a pianist/coach, Robards was a NATS Professional Intern, a Songfest Professional Development Program Participant and as a conductor, a participant in the Banff Opera in the 21st Century program. Professional memberships include IKCAS (International Keyboard Collaborative Arts Society), NATS, Maestra, MUSE, Deus Ex Musica, and the National Opera Association (Chair of the Sacred in Opera Initiative).