Robert Papacica

Robert Papacica is an award-winning composer, educator, and musician originally from Toronto, Canada. He has appeared as a sideman in jazz clubs in Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Seattle, and New York.

As a leader, Robert is part of the Ark Trio, which features Keshav Batish on drums and Anthony Paolini on saxophone. The band released their debut record in April 2022. More recently, Robert released a new trio project entitled Reverse Migration featuring Kanoa Mendenhall on bass and Mark Ferber on drums through the New York City-based Pinch Record Label. He regularly plays with his quartet featuring his own original music in New York and jazz clubs across the United States.

As a sideman, Robert has appeared on Orlando Madrid’s From This Moment Forward, featuring GRAMMY Award-winning trumpet player Mike Rodriguez. He can also be heard on BMI William Goldstein Award recipient Adam Claussen’s record Arethusa Falls, and on Gary Meek’s 2021 release Monterey Groove, which features Airto Moreira, Dave Weckl, Flora Purim, and Michael Lent, among others.

Robert began playing guitar at the age of 10 and started playing local gigs at 15 in the California Bay Area. He was a member of the Kuumbwa Jazz Center education program, the SFJazz High School All-Star Big Band, and a YoungArts Jazz awardee in high school. He is also an alumnus of the International Association of Schools of Jazz 2019 seminar led by Dave Liebman in Zagreb, Croatia. In 2022, Robert received an Outstanding Graduate Student Soloist Award from DownBeat Magazine and was selected for the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., under the direction of Jason Moran.

As an alumnus of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, Robert was a member of the Concert Jazz Band, where he performed alongside acclaimed guitarist and composer Adam Rogers, as well as GRAMMY Award-winning artists Dafnis Prieto and John Daversa. He can also be heard on acclaimed composer and jazz professor Clint Bleil’s album.

He has studied under many notable artists and teachers, including Peter Bernstein, John Scofield, John Hart, Bruce Forman, Alan Ferber, Brad Shepik, Billy Drewes, Brian Lynch, Julian Lage, Pat Kelley, Gary Meek, and Adam Rogers.

Robert currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, where he performs and works as an educator for Third Street Music Settlement and Jazz Empowers, a nonprofit organization providing jazz education to the New York school system. He has also taught as an adjunct guitar instructor at the NYU Steinhardt School.

As an engineer, Robert has mixed his own releases, including ARK, as well as the Arnie Sainz, Marshal Herridge, and Tony Moreno album Darts on the Adhyaropa Records label. He has also mixed Johannes Hamm’s record Searching for Something, featuring Drew Gress and Miki Yamanaka. Please contact Robert through the contact form for mixing rates.