Pop music went through the beginnings of a seismic shift in late 1976, when the artist formerly known as Gordon Sumner decided to give up a teaching career in his hometown of Newcastle, England.

The 25-year-old Brit was also a vocalist and bassist who'd taken on the stage name Sting, and he was preparing to move to London as Christmas approached. Playing a farewell Newcastle show with his band Last Exit, he was approached by American drummer Stewart Copeland, then with the group Curved Air.

Within six months, those bands were history. Sting and Copeland enlisted British guitarist Andy Summers and formed The Police, arguably the most important pop band since The Beatles. And like the Fab Four, this trio didn't have a long shelf life (1977-1984). Things were unraveling by the recording sessions for Sting's 1985 solo debut, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, but the frontman has since remained not only the trio's most high-profile figure (with worldwide record sales of nearly 100 million), but one of the world's most recognizable celebrities.

Having referenced everything from jazz and blues to reggae and world music through his 40-year career, Sting's latest recordings have ventured into the classical realm. The 2006 release Songs From the Labyrinth featured lute-based interpretations of 16^th-century composer John Dowland's music; the 2009 disc If On a Winter's Night… holiday renditions of traditional songs and material by Schubert and Bach, and the new orchestral Symphonicities CD variations on Police and Sting tunes with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, conducted by Steven Mercurio. All are on Deutsche Grammophon.

The Symphonicity tour started in May with a lineup that includes the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, Mercurio and longtime guitarist Dominic Miller. Sting brings the 50-piece ensemble to the Cruzan Ampitheater in West Palm Beach on Friday. For Mercurio, the tour actually presented an introduction to the compositions.

“I didn't even really know Sting's music before this,” says the genial, 54-year-old New York City-based conductor. “We'd never met. I may have heard a few of his songs, but I only really knew of him as a personality. The two sides that brought us together were Live Nation and Universal. Live Nation handles the nuts and bolts of the tour, and when Sting wanted to use a philharmonic, Universal was in charge of the classical element; taking care of the orchestra and conductor. The people there knew me, and so far, the tour has been terrific. We're having a ball."

Miller wasn't all that familiar with Sting's catalog, either, when he was in a similar position 20 years ago.

“I had a jazz and classical background in the '80s,” said the 50-year-old guitarist, who's been with Sting since his 1991 album The Soul Cages. “But I ended up working with [former Police] producer Hugh Padgham on a few projects. One was Phil Collins' 1990 album ‘But Seriously,’ which ended up being a huge success. Hugh told Sting about me; I went over and jammed with him, and here I still am. At the time, I liked The Police and I liked Sting, but I wouldn't have called myself a fan. I've certainly become one, though, because these are really great songs. You can play them any way, including with an orchestra, and they'll stand up.”

Part of the reason that Sting's songs translate into the classical realm is new arrangements. The composer cast a wide net for reinterpretations, and drew it back with gems by Vince Mendoza, Michel Legrand, Rob Mathes, Jorge Calandrelli, David Hartley, Bill Ross, Nicola Tescari, Robert Sadin, and Mercurio himself. The conductor earned his master’s degree from Juilliard in 1982, was mentored by Leonard Bernstein, and has worked with the New York Philharmonic and operatic vocalists Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli. Hardly a classical elitist, Mercurio was not only open to working with a pop star, but excited at the prospect after their first meeting.

“Everything happened so quickly,” Mercurio says. “Sting lives over at Central Park West, so I went over and we discussed his ideas for the tour. I told him what I could help him do, and one thing was to bring the orchestra to him, which made him feel more comfortable. As a composer and arranger myself, he knew I could also help modify and adjust the pieces as he saw fit. We're continuing to do that.

“The biggest challenge is probably not losing the integrity of the original pop songs, while not making the orchestra subservient. We didn't want a pops concert, or a rock show where the orchestra is playing whole notes and just humming in neutral. We wanted it to be close to 50/50, and I think we've achieved that.”

For Miller, that means having to make his voice heard in the modification process.

“I'm hoping that the arrangers won't recognize their arrangements by the end of this tour,” he says with a laugh (and a lasting British accent from his London days that belies the fact that he was born in Buenos Aires; attended high school in Wisconsin, and currently lives in France). “They were asked to do a job, which they did really well. But we're playing the songs, so I'm trying things that might influence Sting and Steven to rethink them. They change and evolve as we go, the same as in a rock band. If the orchestra were a keyboard player, we'd be doing the same thing.”

Mercurio canceled summer performances of Verdi’s Rigoletto with the Italian Teatro L'Opera company, among other projects, to conduct the Symphonicity tour. He recalls its initial rehearsals as brief yet productive.

“We had a week in New York a few months ago where we went through 28 songs,” he says. “We kept 26 of them. But we adjusted both the orchestrations and the forms; redid introductions and codas, thinned things out and added things. Sting got excited after that, and started suggesting other tunes.”

Miller says rehearsals “were really good and a lot of fun. What a luxury to rehearse with an orchestra. And what an expense!”

The 2007-2008 Police reunion tour, by contrast, featured fewer musicians and expenses but significantly more tension. Though he playing some of the same songs, Sting has referred to the experience as “like going back to a dysfunctional marriage.”

For the Symphonicity tour, Mercurio's arrangements include Sting's solo offerings You Will Be My Ain True Love and When We Dance. It was also his idea to preface Mendoza's arrangement of Russians with the coronation scene from Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.

“There were so many arrangers that it was like a big pile-up,” says Mercurio. “I think there are six different ones on the album alone, but they were all coordinated by Rob Mathes. He produced the record and did 35 to 40 percent of the arranging. My job with him was to make sure that all the arrangements fit this size orchestra and worked well for Sting.”

The Symphonicities CD, to be released July 13, features Police hits in Roxanne, Next to You and Ev’ry Little Thing She Does Is Magic, as well as a lesser-known gem in I Burn for You. The other tracks are all Sting solo efforts, including Englishman in New York, We Work the Black Seam and She's Too Good for Me. Yet the tour was scheduled well before the CD was even considered.

“Once Sting started hearing the arrangements with the orchestra, he said, 'We have to record this,’” Mercurio says. “We were just scheduled to tour before that. So we went to London to rehearse for a week after the initial rehearsals, during which time other songs were added and the original tunes were adjusted more, and then we did the recording. After that, we did warm-up gigs in Germany and Morocco, then started the official tour on June 2 in Vancouver.”

While Mercurio has familiarized himself with Sting's music through the prism of a 45-piece orchestra, Miller is the musical director for his accompanying smaller touring lineup, which includes vocalist Jo Lawry, bassist Ira Coleman, and percussionists Rhani Krija and David Cossin. The orchestral context may be different from his norm, but Miller has grown used to change with Sting.

“I don't really see a huge difference,” he says. “This job has always been interesting, challenging and taxing as a musician, because you're always evolving. And this is my biggest challenge in 20 years with Sting. The difference is that we now have an orchestra, which I see as just like having another instrument, although they don't jam! Bands like Deep Purple and Metallica have played with orchestras, but they've been more like separate entities. In our case, the band and orchestra are very merged.”

Neither Miller nor Mercurio will be able to merge with their non-Sting musical endeavors any time soon, since a European Symphonicity tour will start in September after the North American dates conclude. The oft-nylon-stringed guitarist recently released his seventh solo CD, an electric, fusion-influenced instrumental effort that was produced by Padgham called November (Q-rious). Yet he has no time to tour in support of it.

“I have some momentum going with my band,” Miller says, “particularly in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. But I've put that on hold. I might be able to do some midnight shows along the way, but then again, I have the best day job in the world! I've never passed up an opportunity to work with Sting, and never will.”

Mercurio's latest recording is the 2006 orchestra-and-vocal CD Many Voices (Sony). He's currently trying to find time to complete a four-movement symphony inspired by Eugene O'Neill's work The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog. O'Neill dedicated the piece to his wife after the death of their family pet in 1940, and Mercurio's wife presented him with a copy upon the loss of theirs.

“It's called ‘A Grateful Tail,’ and most of the movements are almost done,” Mercurio says. “It's the third movement, with the O'Neill text in it, and the first movement, an eight or nine-minute allegro, that I'm trying to find time to finish. Some of the movements have already been performed and gotten a great response, so the entire symphony will be recorded and presented.”

All in good time, however, since both conductor and guitarist seem to enjoy being part of their current Sting with strings movement.

“It's been very exciting,” Mercurio says. “It's great to watch people react, and the response has been phenomenal. A lot of Sting's audience doesn't usually experience an orchestra, but at the end of shows, they're telling me, ‘Wow, the orchestra really rocks.’ I've done six productions of ‘Rigoletto’ already, but this was a unique experience that I felt was, ironically, even more artistically interesting.

“Everyone involved in this wants to contribute and get it right. I don't think musicians are as judgmental anymore, thankfully. They're more three-dimensional now. They know that you can play pop music brilliantly, and you can play Mozart badly,” he says. “And that doing this the right way is more fulfilling.”

Miller even says that “Sting's compositions aren't that different from Bach's."

“He doesn't play it safe, and he inspires us not to, either. He did a lute album, of all things; re-formed The Police, and did a winter album. He's done risky things, and I stand by him. I wouldn't necessarily compare Police songs to Bach, but really good composition is indestructible. Which made this a fantastic opportunity.”

Sting and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra perform at 8 p.m. Friday, July 2, at the Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach. Tickets range from $27-$157 and are available through www.livenation.com.

Sergei Prokofiev didn’t write a great deal of chamber music, but his two string quartets, two violin sonatas (one originally for flute) and piano quintet are marvelous works, and worthy of the repertory status that only the violin sonatas currently appear to have.

The same goes for the Sonata for Two Violins (in C, Op. 56), written in 1932 for a French chamber music series in Paris. It’s a fascinating, absorbing piece, and Tuesday night at Persson Hall it received a standout performance from two members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Jun-Ching Lin and Jay Christy, who are part of the faculty for this summer’s Stringendo School for Strings at Palm Beach Atlantic University, were right in tune with the Prokofiev, and not just in the numerous bits of tricky intonation at the ends of phrases, in which the two players have to end up on the same pitch. They were right in synch with the spirit of this piece, which covers a good deal of dramatic and emotional ground, and does so in the Russian composer’s most pungent harmonic idiom.

Both men are fine players who demonstrated complete command of their instruments, and worked well together, trading motifs and themes seamlessly. Especially noteworthy were the second movement, which opened with a savage, but precise ferocity in which the little minor-key melodic fragment was hammered out with impressive force.

The slow third movement was played with wonderful, sorrowful contrast, lullaby-like and tender, and here, too, the primary melodic materials were clearly marked out. It’s worth noting that there are frequent ostinato patterns used as accompaniments in this sonata, and both men took turns shifting from lead to support and back again with expert fluidity.

The outer movements were just as striking, the first for its shape-shifting harmonic structure and its treacherous unison high-note summits, and the finale for its crisp, martial vigor. This was a splendid performance of this fine piece, and a pleasure to hear.

Lin and Christy were joined by violists Renata Guitart and David Pedraza, and cellists Jonah Kim and Hector Ochoa, for the early, ravishing String Sextet No. 1 (in B-flat, Op. 18) of Brahms, composed in 1859. This is one of Brahms’ finest youthful pieces, and it’s pretty hard to resist; this performance won fervent applause, and in general it was well-deserved.

Much of the more extroverted writing in this piece features the two violins and the first cello, with the second used more like a bass. Kim, the first cellist, a Lynn University student who already has an international career, was central to the success of this performance, playing his solo passages with a compelling, intense accuracy. The six players offered a pleasing blend as an ensemble, and clearly communicated with each other to make tempo and dynamic changes smooth.

The performance as a whole also had a feeling of bigness and force, though in the first movement, the little four-note motif that appears throughout the work was a bit too heavy on its first appearance, and there were some questionable intonations across the ensemble in the opening minutes as this particular ship of state righted itself and found its sea legs.

The second movement, a magnificent theme-and-variations that has a strong mid-18^th-century flavor, was played with huge, aggressive attacks on the chord changes, which helped evoke the antiquarian sound of which Brahms was so fond. Kim’s solo first variation was right on target, and while the violas had some difficulty with exact tuning in the folk-style major-key variation at the end, it still came across with great effectiveness.

Lin showed his skill as a leader in setting a delightfully appropriate lightness and relaxed tempo for opening of the third-movement scherzo, and of crafting the speedier tempo for the trio. The finale had the same kind of heavy stresses as the first movement, and when it got to the fugue-like development section, with its accented three-note anchors, it was just short of over the top. But it was tempestuous and exciting, and a fine conclusion to an excellent reading of this sextet, and of the concert.

Tuesday’s program opened with the popular Rondo from Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (in B minor, Op. 7, La Campanella), as arranged for viola by William Primrose. Pedraza was the soloist, accompanied by pianist Liera Antropova. Unfortunately, this piece was not ready for public performance, though it had glimmers of what it could be when Pedraza gets it under his fingers; Antropova did yeoman service in keeping the music on track.

The Stringendo series of faculty concerts closes next Tuesday with music of Luigi Boccherini: the String Quintet in C (La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid, G. 324), played by violinists Patrick Clifford and Belen Clifford, violist Renata Guitart, and cellists Claudio Jaffé and Jonah Kim. Kim solos in the Fantaisiestücke, Op. 73, of Schumann, accompanied by Liera Antropova, followed by the Schubert Piano Trio in B-flat, Op. 99, with Clifford, Jaffé and Antropova. The concert begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Persson Recital Hall on the campus of Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach. Tickets are $15; call 803-2970 or visit www.pba.edu.

A violist for the Cleveland Orchestra made a persuasive case for the power and versatility of his instrument Tuesday night during a performance of a Telemann concerto at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Stanley Konopka, who has been assistant principal viola of the Cleveland since 1993, was one of two members of that orchestra featured in Tuesday’s concert, the second program of four with faculty members of PBAU’s Stringendo School for Strings summer music camp. Konopka played the German Baroque master’s concerto in G major (TWV 51: G9) with an 11-piece string ensemble as the final work on the concert at Persson Hall.

Konopka has a big, beautiful sound, and he plays with force and verve, which might be one of the reasons his viola speaks so well. His digital technique is impressive, too, with the fiddle-style patterns of the second movement clean and right in tune, and the rushing scales of the finale properly joyful and athletic.

The familiar third movement showed off the loveliness of Konopka’s tone, and the Stringendo faculty string players accompanied with a gratifyingly full sound that avoided the overly restrained approach you sometimes hear in performances of Baroque music.

The concert opened with another Cleveland player, cellist Alan Harrell, in the early Introduction and Polonaise Brillante, Op. 3, of Frédéric Chopin. Most of the Polish composer’s music was for piano, of course, but through his friendship with French cellist Auguste Franchomme, he wrote a handful of cello and chamber works, including a fine Piano Trio and the great but neglected Cello Sonata at the end of his composing career.

Harrell, accompanied by pianist Liera Antropova, brought a large, intense tonal quality to the playing of this flashy showpiece, even giving the pizzicato accompaniments under the pianist’s statement of the main theme a noticeable flourish. Harrell has plenty of technique and interpretive panache, and that came across well, but in the trickiest higher passages, his footing was less sure.

Antropova played the virtuosic piano part ably and accurately, if not with a great deal of sparkle. Both musicians gave the Chopin a strong performance, though I’m guessing it was probably a rehearsal or two away from the thoroughly polished reading it might have received.

The other piece on the program was one on of the chamber music masterpieces of the 20^th century, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57. Antropova, Harrell and Konopka were joined by violinists David Mastrangelo and Renata Guitart for this work, which has all the dark lyricism, bumptiousness and dramatic punch of Shostakovich’s best music.

At their best, the four string players blended lusciously in the slower pages, and in the rough-and-tumble scherzo they gave their repeated, hammered chords plenty of firepower. In the fourth-movement Intermezzo, though, which is in large part a violin solo, first violinist Mastrangelo had some intonation trouble in the final moments, which took away from the sorrowful effect of the movement overall.

Still, the five musicians had a good handle on the quintet’s many moods, and judging by their smiles, seemed to particularly enjoy the fifth and final movement, which fades away in a serene, major-key, almost offhand manner before expiring in a plucked-string whisper. If it was an unremarkable rendition of the quintet, it was nonetheless solid, and the players managed to get Shostakovich’s message across capably and effectively.

The Stringendo chamber music series continues with another faculty concert at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Persson Hall on the PBAU campus. Members of the Atlanta Symphony will be on hand for music by Paganini (a viola arrangement of the Rondo from his Concerto No. 2), Prokofiev (the Sonata for Two Violins) and Brahms (his String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat, Op. 18). Tickets are $15. Call 803-2970 for more information or visit www.pba.edu.

Unlike many younger musicians these days, Leonard Gilbert doesn’t go in for a lot of demonstrative behavior at the keyboard.

The 19-year-old Canadian pianist, who recently won first place in his country’s Chopin Piano Competition, shows admirable form at the instrument, letting his fingers and arms do the bulk of the work as he plays. And as his recital Saturday night at the Broward County Main Library in Fort Lauderdale showed, that playing is of a high caliber, and the kind that excites an audience.

Gilbert’s all-Chopin program included a number of big works, chief among them the Scherzo No. 1 (in B minor, Op. 20), the Sonata No. 3 (also in B minor, Op. 58), and the Ballade No. 4 (in F minor, Op. 52). The celebrated Polonaise in A-flat (Op. 53) was also included, along with three shorter works: two of the Op. 25 Études (Nos. 5 in E minor and 11 in A minor) and the popular Nocturne in D-flat, Op. 27, No. 2.

In all of these pieces, Gilbert demonstrated a large and impressive technique, especially in the multiple passages of speedy, glittering runs, such as in the second movement of the Third Sonata. There was no audible sense of strain or struggle in bringing off these measures; rather, it sounded as though Gilbert simply was taking another strand of well-formed pearls off an endless assembly line.

He also has a remarkably mature sound for someone still in his teens. Gilbert already is a pianist who knows how to create a persuasive deep mood, as he did most notably in the nocturne, which had a gentle, hushed, almost half-hearted quality that was very effective.

What he is not yet able to do, though this should come with time, is craft a unified long narrative. In all of the larger pieces Saturday night, the sections were too distinct from each other, and in addition there was a kind of rushed quality throughout the recital that at times took away Chopin’s subtler touches.

In the first movement of the sonata, for example, the main theme and secondary theme sounded like two different pieces, and while they are quite separate in character, they are part of a sonata form and they need to sound like they are part of the same line of reasoning. The same comment applies to the scherzo, which had a very clear, springy feel to the main section, but when it got to the Polish Christmas carol Chopin used for the middle section, Gilbert didn’t take enough time to set it up, slamming on his musical brakes before playing the carol.

In the polonaise, the second subject after the main theme didn’t have the kind of snap it needs as it goes through its swift harmonic rhythm, a rhythm whose periods are separated by that long glissando that ends in the high accented notes. Gilbert plowed through that passage with technical skill, but that run and its ending notes conclude that harmonic paragraph, and the break has to be clear and deliberate. It’s a musical palate-cleanser, and it has to be stressed so that the ear is ready for the next series of rapidly changing chords.

Perhaps that’s too nitpicky or technical, but it seems to me that these is the primary thing that Gilbert needs to work on next to become more than just the already excellent pianist he is. Chopin took great care with his transitional material, and if enough attention isn’t paid to exactly what’s going on there, the long line of the music’s argument won’t come through. Once that’s in place, he can concentrate on shaping the themes with more refinement, such as in the E major section of the E minor étude, which was too rushed Saturday night to be completely effective, particularly at the ends of phrases.

That said, there were many moments of really fine playing, such as the main theme of the sonata’s finale, which had color, strength and real bigness, and the ballade, which could have used more interpretive shading but otherwise had the kind of grit and fire that makes it epic. Overall, Gilbert’s best playing came in the nocturne, which was beautifully communicative from the first low bass notes to the simple cadence at the end.

As noted, Leonard Gilbert already is a formidable pianist at an early age. With his sheer command of the keyboard, in moments of virtuosity and those in which good tone color and expressiveness are at a premium, he has a good chance to build a strong career for himself. What he needs to do now is dig a little deeper into the music and understand more about it, so that it has its maximum opportunity to speak.

It’s not easy to categorize a musician who can write sonatas for turntables and hip-hop etudes, a violin concerto and dance scores, but the world of contemporary classical music is quickly getting used to the cross-genre fluency of people such as Daniel Bernard Roumain.

“I think there are a lot of composers my age and younger, who literally have played in rock bands, go to nightclubs, kind of hang out in what you could loosely describe as anti-classical music establishments,” Roumain said. “And I think that it’s reflected in what we’re all doing. There’s a whole scene of young American composers who freely embrace technology, work with rock musicians, work with DJs and laptopists … and who are also electronic musicians and remixers, and are adept at the handling of the technology.”

Now, with his custom-made six-string violin (whimsically named Bernadette), Roumain is pursuing a multi-pronged career that sees him as composer, performer, bandleader, teacher, and conductor, a far cry from the regimented concert life he once thought he would be leading when he first heard a violin in the halls of Margate Elementary School and knew what he wanted to do for a living.

Roumain, 39, grew up in Margate as the son of Haitian immigrants who moved from suburban Chicago to Broward County when Daniel was just 5. After graduating from the Dillard School of Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, it was off to Nashville for study at Vanderbilt University, then north to Ann Arbor for a master’s and doctorate at the University of Michigan.

Since then, he’s held enviable compositional residencies at prestigious organizations such as the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the American Composers Orchestra and the Seattle Theater Group, and schools such as Arizona State and Drexel universities. He’s written for theater, film and television, and for world-class instrumentalists such as guitarist Eliot Fisk, who in 2007 premiered Roumain’s guitar concerto, We March!, with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.

In late March, Thirsty Ear Records released Roumain’s second album, Woodbox Beats & Balladry. It contains music Roumain has written over the past three or four years, and unlike his first album, etudes4violin&electronix, released in 2007, Woodbox was designed to be a showcase for his nine-piece band.

“It’s always about the violin first, and it’s always about a conversation,” he said. “The first record was a conversation with other composers – Philip Glass, [Ryuichi] Sakomoto, [DJ] Spooky, and so forth – this is really a conversation with the members of my band, DBR and the Mission. It’s [also] kind of a conversation between my violin as performer, and my work as a composer.

“We focused on works that were written down – very little improvisation, including the ‘Sonata for Violin and Turntables’ -- and really the conversation had to do with musicians I’ve been working with for years,” he said. “And the compositions we’ve been playing for years. So this is something that’s much deeper, much closer to home, and I think the record reflects that.”

Woodbox Beats & Balladry is an energetic, eclectic mix of music that makes use of radically different sound worlds: from the chugging rhythms of Armstrong (based on one of Roumain’s Hip-Hop Etudes) to the moody stasis of Simone, with its long, simple piano chords and a melody that climbs by repeated notes slowly up. Although Roumain’s widely varied violin playing stands out as the focus of the disc, it still has the feel of a band record on its dancier cuts [here is the official trailer for the disc].

But there are also tracks such as Moonshine, for which Roumain did “everything: the production, the keyboards, the track, the bass – and that’s just not unusual at all anymore.”

“There’s a really big difference between the previous generation of composers, who were more about ensemble work, and who were maybe less comfortable with some aspects of the technology. Maybe that’s a fair argument, I don’t know,” he said. “But certainly what’s happening now is you’re seeing composers who have huge interest in film, television and the dance scene, and the rock hipster scene, the indie scene. I think all this is finding its way into their voices.”

The final track on the album, Our Country, is a deeply expressive meditative fantasy on My Country, ‘tis of Thee, in which the familiar tune is played and then varied in gradually higher registers, most of it over a gentle ostinato pattern in the piano. The piece begins in the lowest strings of the six-string, and it sounds very much like a cello. The violin was made for Roumain by Eric Aceto, a luthier who owns Ithaca Stringed Instruments in upstate New York.

“I’ve been working with him for a few years, and we started talking casually about ‘How can we make a violin that has very low strings? What would we have to do to make it really sound good?’” Roumain said.

The violin has two added strings on the lower end, a C below middle C (like the lowest string of the viola) and an F below that. Roumain said he sometimes tunes the bottom two strings to E-flat and B-flat and explores the resulting chord, a nice, jazzy E-flat with a major seventh and a flat fifth and ninth.

“It’s the only instrument of its kind in the world. It has a very unique sound,” he said. It’s also heavier, like a viola, and there was some learning curve for Roumain to get comfortable with it. “The first few months, I was getting this weird tennis elbow … It’s a monster. It’s not something you just pick up and play.”

Roumain, like many musicians of his generation, is working at a time of great change. The advent of relatively cheap but excellent computer technology has radically altered the music industry from the standpoint of recording and distribution. It also has encouraged compositional efforts from writers who until relatively recently would have had little chance of getting a hearing for their music.

“I’m not sure, but I would imagine there’s never been more composers living and working in New York,” said Roumain, who also lives there with his wife, Jill, a special education teacher, and their 11-month-old son, Zachary. “At the same time, it doesn’t necessarily feel that way … The people getting the attention don’t necessarily reflect not only the vastness of the industry, they also don’t necessarily reflect the depth or even the interests of the industry.”

Still, while the tendency of cultural activity to organize itself into hierarchies of “in” composers and players hasn’t changed, almost everything else has.

“The biggest change is you do have access. Composers do have their own websites, they do get their music out over the Internet, they do have their own online mechanisms, not for publication, but for performance,” he said.

“I think that for me, I’m always thinking about what I want to do next ... You’re kind of always competing, not only with yourself in a way, but the people who came before you, the people right next to you, and the people coming from behind,” Roumain said.

“I think that’s also a big difference. John Cage didn’t have to compete with a 16-year-old who has 200,000 views on his website.”

Much of Roumain’s work life is taken up with education. He has just finished a year of occasional stops at Vanderbilt as a visiting associate professor of composition, and during a recent appearance in Boston, he toured six schools in the Massachusetts capital. The chief question he gets from aspiring musicians is this: How do I do what you did?

When they ask, Roumain tells them who his models were: Philip Glass, Prince, Madonna, Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, among others. “And sure, I definitely have a whole list of activities, my kind of Ten Commandments for a career, and I just try to give them very practical, specific guidance.”

Roumain also defines himself as a Haitian-American artist, and he remains passionate about aiding his parents’ native country, especially in the wake of the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed an estimated 230,000 people.

“Every opportunity I get I’m flipping my previously scheduled concerts into relief efforts,” he said. “I think, moving ahead, it’s my job as a self-proclaimed Haitian-American composer to just keep talking about it, to remind people that Haiti still needs help.”

Roumain will visit Haiti this summer with other artists to give some concerts, and he notes that music has the power to bring people together. “The thing about a concert, or the arts, is that it really gives you a sense of your humanity,” he said, and he hopes the music will help Haitians who have lived through such a punishing catastrophe be reminded of their humanity as well.

One major event still to come this year is scheduled for Sept. 25, when the New World Symphony in Miami Beach will give the premiere of Roumain’s new Symphony for Dancers, Dreamers and Presidents, written for the Sphinx Foundation, and scheduled for performance by 11 other major symphonic ensembles including the Detroit, Philadelphia and Cincinnati orchestras. Roumain has written a good deal of music for dance, having worked for six or seven years with the eminent choreographer Bill T. Jones, and plans to soon release a recording of some of that music.

“I have found a way to make all of these endeavors have a fluid and effortless conversation with one another,” he said. “And that’s good for me. If you talk to my wife, I tour too much; if you talk to the band, we don’t tour nearly as much as we should.”

Most recently, last month he led the New England Conservatory of Music student orchestra in his new Symphony for the Dance Floor, and he’s begun work on another commission for the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Despite all these different activities and the relentless pace of change in the industry, certain things about an artist’s life are the same as they ever were, Roumain said.

“Changes involve a hyper-branching out of many different things at once,” he said. “The only thing you can do as an artist, the thing that has not changed at all, is that you have to know who you are, you have to understand your audience, and you have to build it and cultivate it every single day.”

“In that sense, nothing has changed,” he said. “The commitment – that hasn’t changed at all.”

Daniel Bernard Roumain’s website – www.dbrmusic.com – has a large selection of sheet music excerpts from his compositions, which helps gives visitors a better idea what his music is all about.