Born in Dallas, Texas, Robert Carlisle Black (1950–1993) was an American conductor, composer, and pianist. He began his piano studies at age five, presenting his first public recital at thirteen. Black studied at Oberlin College and the Juilliard School in New York, where his teachers included Beveridge Webster, Roger Sessions, and David Diamond. He taught at Oberlin, Stanford University, Long Island University (C. W. Post Campus), Princeton University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Black was most particularly associated with the promotion, performance, and recording of contemporary classical music, but he also played and conducted the standard repertoire. A fixture of the new music scene in New York City from the mid-1970s, he founded the New York New Music Ensemble in 1975 and the Prism chamber orchestra in 1983, and he was a member of Speculum Musicae from 1978 on. He was music director of the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra (1987–1993), and in 1992 was appointed Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra (Finland). Other orchestras he conducted or recorded with included the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Silesian Philharmonic.

As a conductor, Black was as much involved with the standard orchestral repertory as with new music. He conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (New York), a cycle of symphonies by Mahler, and Mozart piano concertos from the keyboard. Among the hundreds of works his new music groups premiered were Ralph Shapey’s Three for Six, Joseph Schwantner’s Music of Amber, Dane Rudhyar’s Epic Poem, as well as works by Elliott Carter, Jacob Druckman, Jean Barraqué, and Harrison Birtwistle.

Robert Black came to serious composition very late in his life. His works were particularly influenced by Charles Wuorinen and Ralph Shapey, and include Underground Judges; Three Pieces for Violin and Piano, later reworked as the orchestral work Capriccio (“Blown Apart”); and Earth Fire, for viola and piano. His sole piece for solo piano was Foramen Habet!, dedicated to Beveridge Webster. 

Black died of melanoma in Palo Alto, California, on November 14, 1993, aged 43.