Bob Lord (musician)

Bob Lord (born 1976)^[1] is an American music producer, composer, bassist, and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of PARMA Recordings,^[3] a contemporary classical music production house and parent company to label imprints Big Round Records, Navona Records, Ravello Records, MMC Recordings, Ansonica Records, Capstone Records, Albany Records and more recently MSR Classics.^[4][5][6]

A prolific figure in the recording industry, Lord has more than 1,000 production and recording credits to his name.^[7][8] He has served as Executive Producer for three Grammy Award-winning albums, including the 2023 and 2025 winners for Best Choral Performance.^[9][10] Through the Navona label, he has several production credits on earlier albums, such as The Arc in the Sky, a 2020 Grammy-nomination.^[11][12]

Outside of his work with PARMA, Lord serves as the President of the Zagreb Festival Orchestra, Croatia.^[13] More locally, he has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra since 2013.^[14]

He is also notable for being the bassist/composer of the experimental rock trio Dreadnaught, music director for the NHPR/Music Hall series Writers on a New England Stage, and in-studio producer of Grammy-winning clarinetist Richard Stoltzman.

He has more than 150 credits as a producer, executive producer, performer, arranger, label manager, and composer, and with Pete Townshend of The Who served as co-producer for the double-album release by Lawrence Ball, Method Music.^[15]

Lord's musical output spans the rock, classical, jazz, pop, film, and experimental genres, and he has composed, produced, and arranged for a wide cross-section of instrumentation, including orchestra ("James Thresher Industries"), rock band ("The Elevator Chaser"), piano ("Kazak, The Hound Of Space"), string orchestra ("Creepin'"), and electronics ("Agah Eegah"). His music is largely instrumental and generally eschews song format, with some exceptions ("Bony Cleave", "Danny").

As a recording artist, Lord has appeared on over three dozen releases and won numerous awards for his work. Dreadnaught's The American Standard (2001) was one of the best-reviewed progressive rock releases of its year,^[16] and the decade-long retrospective High Heat & Chin Music (2007) received a "Best Of NH 2007" award from New Hampshire Magazine.^[17] As a bassist he has been noted for his crisp tone (achieved through frequent use of a plectrum) and unusual bass lines.^[18]

In 2002, while beginning preparations for what would become Dreadnaught's double-disc Live At Mojo (Comet Records), Lord began composing and producing music for film and other media; his work includes music for "Flying Downhill", a documentary on Olympic skier Bode Miller, "Marilyn's Man", a Marilyn Monroe documentary released by Universal, "Wander", an award-winning short film which aired on IFC,^[19] and the theme song for "The Exchange" from New Hampshire Public Radio.

Lord began producing for MMC Recordings in 2005 where he worked with Richard Stoltzman, Pixar/Randy Newman orchestrator Jonathan Sacks, and company owner and composer/pianist William Thomas McKinley among others, with credits on more than 30 releases over the next three years and recording with numerous orchestras, composers, ensembles, and players.

In 2008, Lord launched PARMA Recordings, an audio production company, and Navona Records, a classical imprint. In 2009, PARMA acquired the classical label Capstone Records and Big Round Records (previously owned by Congressman Paul Hodes), and launched Ravello Records, an imprint dedicated to modern classical music. In 2011, PARMA acquired MMC Recordings and the boutique online publisher ThatNewMusicWebsite/ThatNewMusicLibrary.

PARMA's releases include work by Pulitzer Prize winners Lewis Spratlan and Donald Martino, New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, former Congressman and Orleans founder John Hall, percussionist Steve Gadd, the London Symphony Orchestra, children's artist Raffi, and jazz bassist Eddie Gómez, violin and guitar ensemble Duo46 (music of John Carollo) among others.

In 2011, Lord served as co-producer with Pete Townshend of The Who for Lawrence Ball's Method Music, released in January 2012 on Navona Records. The album is a continuation of the concepts first explored in Townshend's Lifehouse project and Lifehouse Method website.

Since its formation in 1996, Lord's primary performance vehicle has been Dreadnaught. The band began touring nationally in 2000 as a trio, performed in more than half of the U.S. states, and earned a reputation as a highly accomplished musical unit equally proficient in highly structured compositions and free-wheeling improvisation.

With Dreadnaught, Lord has shared a stage with John Entwistle (The Who), Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson), NRBQ, Jim Weider (The Band), California Guitar Trio, and the Young Dubliners. In 2005, the group began a prominent stint as house band for the New Hampshire Public Radio series Writers on a New England Stage at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, where it has performed with Stephen King, Dan Brown, Ken Burns, Alan Alda, John Updike, Elmore Leonard, Madeleine Albright, and Mitch Albom, among others. The series has attracted international coverage and has been featured in press outlets such as The Today Show and Good Morning America.

In 2011, Lord served as on-air host for the NHPR/Music Hall live radio series Live@TheLoft, which featured the artists Buffalo Tom, Stew (musician) & The Negro Problem, Frazey Ford, and Patty Larkin.

Selected List

• Official Bob Lord website
• Official PARMA Recordings website
• Official Dreadnaught website
• All-Music Guide Listing
• AllMusic review of "Live At Mojo"
• Ground And Sky review of "The American Standard"
• Portland Phoenix review of "Musica En Flagrante
• Writers On A New England Stage homepage at NHPR
• Writers On A New England Stage homepage at the Music Hall website
• New Hampshire Public Radio page for Live@TheLoft
• 'Ep. 120: Bob Lord, CEO of PARMA Recordings' Interview by Tigran Arakelyan