Bio

Robert Baldwin is Music Director for the Salt Lake Symphony and Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of Utah. He also serves as Music Director for Sinfonia Salt Lake, a professional chamber orchestra, and is the conductor for the Utah Arts Festival Composer Commissions.  Outside Utah, he is the conductor of UK Opera Theatre’s It’s a Grand Night for Singing, and is a visiting performing professor at Wuhan University in China. Previously, he has held conducting positions at the University of Kentucky, Lexington Philharmonic, New American Symphony, Flagstaff Symphony and Northern Arizona University Orchestras.

Rob’s writing includes published works on music and poetry. He also writes fiction, memoir, and essay. His poetry has appeared in Poetry Quarterly, Haiku Journal, Grey Sparrow Journal, Three-Line Poetry, and Utah Life Magazine, among others. Scholarly articles have appeared in the Journal of the College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA), the American String Teacher Journal, and include a chapter in the book, Playing the Viola.

Guest conducting appearances include the Hunan Symphony, Wuhan Conservatory and Wuhan University Orchestras in China, Busan International Music Festival in South Korea, Eutin Music Festival in Germany, the Kuopio Academy of Music in Finland, the Great Falls Symphony, the Lafayette Symphony, the 2006 Mozart Orchestra Festival in Austria, and the Hermitage Camerata Symphony in Saint Petersburg, Russia.  Also active as a performer on viola and viola d’amore, he has performed recitals in Germany, Mexico and the U.S., and has performed as a guest performer with the St. Petersburg Quartet, the Stanford Quartet, and the Amadeus Trio.   His performances have received international attention and have been featured on New York’s WQXR Classical Radio, and nationally syndicated public radio programs such as Performance Today, Highway 89 and Weekend Edition. In his spare time he enjoys writing, reading and spending time outdoors in Utah’s wild places.

Rob regularly makes guest appearances as a conductor, viola and viola d’amore player, and as a speaker on a variety of subjects, musical and extra-musical.  For inquiries on performances, master classes and speaking engagements, please contact him directly at: robert.baldwin@music.utah.edu