“The magical power of music has been my source of inspiration for decades. Playing drums brings me happiness every day”. – Robert Jospé

Born in Manhattan, Robert Jospé was inspired by his Belgian parents love of music and began playing the drums at fourteen. He had his first professional performance in France at the age of sixteen. While attending the Cambridge School of Weston in Weston, Massachusetts, Jospé enrolled in the Berklee College of Music summer session and began formal training on drums. Upon graduating from the Cambridge School, Jospé moved to New York City to attend New York University. Over the next twelve years he became an active player in the New York jazz and rock scene as well as co-leader of the fusion band Cosmology. He studied with Tony Williams and Bob Moses. Jospé has performed with Michael Brecker, Dave Liebman, John Schofield, John Abercrombie, Bobby McFerrin, Pat Metheny, Cyrus Chestnut, Emily Remler, Stanley Jordan, and Joe Henderson.

Jospé released his first CD Inner Rhythm and formed his own group Inner Rhythm in 1990. Inner Rhythm has performed in theaters, concert halls, clubs, and at festivals, private functions and community outreach programs from New York to Honolulu. Since 1992 he has received an annual touring grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts for his bands and master classes. His educational, interactive, lecture/demonstration The World Beat Workshop was presented to thousands of students until 2020. This program highlighted the history of the African diaspora and varied styles of African influenced dance music throughout the Americas. 

Jospé joined the University of Virginia’s music department’s faculty in 1989. Jospé teaches jazz drumming for drum set and “Learn to Groove”, a rhythmic fluency course for hand drums. He is a member of UVA’s faculty jazz ensemble, The Free Bridge Quintet. The Free Bridge Quintet released two CDs, Spanning Time and For the Record. With the Free Bridge Quintet, Robert contributed to the online educational component of Jazz by UVA Professor Scott DeVeaux and jazz writer Gary Giddins. Jospé’s own instructional drum set and hand drum book and DVD Learn to Groove was released in 2008.

Since 2000, Jospe has released four Inner Rhythm CDs; Blue Blaze in 2000, and Time to Play in 2002. Both Hands On in 2004  and Heart Beat in 2006 were on the Random Chance Records label.  Hands On and Time to Play reached number four on Jazz Week, the national radio play chart. Time to Play and Blue Blaze received four stars in Downbeat Magazine. In 2009 Inner Rhythm released an EP Inner Rhythm Now!.

Throughout his career Jospé has played and recorded with many bands and in many musical styles including Cosmology (fusion), Tim Reynolds and TR3 (rock/reggae/fusion), John McCutcheon and SGGL (folk rock), Robin and Linda Williams (folk), Heather Maxwell (soul and Afro-Pop) and jazz with John D’earth Sextet, Bobby Read Quintet, Jeff Decker Quartet with pianist Hod O’Brien and Royce Campbell.  

In 2009 MBSR instructor Maria Kluge in collaboration with Jospé created a pilot program, Rhythm and Resilience, designed to improve the well being of participants through Mindfulness and drumming and began leading classes at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Rhythm and Resilience was offered monthly to the public as a free community program funded by the Kluge Foundation. In Oct. 2009 Jospé completed the Remo Health Rhythms Facilitators Training Workshop in Princeton, NJ.

Jospé was awarded the Artist, Educator of the Year, by the Charlottesville Jazz Society in 2012.

The Robert Jospé Express came together in 2012 when Butch Taylor, former keyboard player with the Dave Matthews band, returned from the West Coast, and they began playing gigs at Fellini’s in Charlottesville. A few months later bassist, Dane Alderson joined the band. In October 2014 a double CD of the band was released, Classics with the trio and Doin’ It Up including guitarist, Brian Mesko.

In 2018 Jospé became a full time faculty/lecturer at UVA teaching three levels of Learn To Groove, private drum set lessons and continuing as a member of the Free Bridge Quintet.

In 2019 Jospé released Just Lookin’ his eighth CD as a leader. The digital CD features John D’earth on trumpet along with the Express Quartet.

2022-2024

Currently The Robert Jospé Trio and Quartet includes piano/keyboards, bass and guitar and continues to perform locally and regionally.

Jospé has been featured in Jazz Times Magazine and in Modern Drummer Magazine, UVAMagazine.org, and The Savvy Musician.