Robert Walters

Robert Walters has been the solo English horn player of The Cleveland Orchestra since 2004. A fourth-generation college music professor, Robert Walters has taught at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music since 2006 and was appointed professor of oboe and English horn in 2010. His students have secured solo positions in leading orchestras across the United States.

Walters has appeared as a soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra on numerous occasions, performing the works of Rorem, Pēteris Vasks, J.S. Bach, Copeland, and Bernard Rands. He has also made guest solo appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Beijing Radio Symphony, China Film Philharmonic, Qingdao Symphony Orchestra, New York Chamber Soloists, and The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.

Walters was formerly the solo English horn player of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He has performed and recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic and was an active freelance musician in New York City for many years. He also spent five summers at the Marlboro Music Festival and toured as a member of Musicians from Marlboro.

Walters has taught and performed at the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bard Music Festival, Colorado College Summer Music Festival, Domaine Forget, Hidden Valley Music Seminars, Music Academy of the West, New World Symphony, Rice University, and Cutris Institute of Music. He was recently featured as a solo artist on NPR’s Performance Today and on the PBD Great Performances series Now Hear This.

A native of Los Angeles and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, Walters is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Richard Woodhams, and Columbia University, where he earned an MFA in poetry.

Walters is married to architectural lighting designer Lindsay Stefans, and they raise four daughters together — Kira, Saya, Tatiana, and Natalia.