Clive Robbins

Clive Robbins, (23 July 1927 in Handsworth, West Midlands - 7 December 2011 in New York) was a British music therapist, Special Needs educator, anthroposophist and co-founder of Nordoff-Robbins music therapy.

Born on 23 July 1927 in Handsworth, Birmingham as the son of a baker, Clive Robbins did not discover until he was 17 that the woman he had always been told was his older sister, was actually his mother, due to prejudices surrounding the issue of illegitimacy at the time. He started life somewhat disoriented and in search of meaning and purpose. During the World War II, he was sent away to foster parents. Here he developed his lifelong passion for music, was able to hear classical music and take piano lessons.

While in the RAF at 18, Clive was injured by a bullet that nearly killed him, leaving his left hand and arm partially paralysed and dashing his hopes of becoming a pianist. Instead, he attempted photography and painting but found no vocation until becoming a teacher in 1954 at Sunfield Children's Home, a Rudolf Steiner 'curative educational community' for mentally disabled children in the Clent Grove, Stourbridge. He described it as "the first profoundly fulfilling experience of my life". He and his wife Mildred lived with their two children, Tobias and Jennifer, on the grounds of the school in a small trailer.

It was in 1958 at Sunfield that Clive met Paul Nordoff, who was an eminent American composer and pianist. Paul Nordoff was always fascinated by Steiner's philosophy, known as anthroposophy, and was so impressed by what he found at Sunfield that he went on to explore his growing interest in the therapeutic potential of music. In 1959, Clive Robbins teamed up with Paul Nordoff and pioneered an extraordinary new way of reaching and engaging disabled children through musical improvisation, music therapy being practically unknown at the time.

Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins were both involved in the thinking and practice of Anthroposophy previous to their meeting. "Our studies of anthroposophy had independently instilled in each of us an attitude of reverence for the destiny of humanity as a whole and the meaningfulness of each human existence" Robbins later wrote, going on to describe the individual music therapy work that they soon began together at Sunfield as "creative empiricism" (Robbins, 2005, p. 10).

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