Biography
Praised by newspaper critics and reviewers nationwide for playing “expressively with a well-paced succession of beautifully spaced phrases” and for being “equally at home shaping elegant legato lines and executing high flying gymnastics”, Hornist Robert Johnson enjoys an established and versatile career as an orchestral and chamber musician, soloist, and teacher of horn.
Before joining the Houston Symphony in 2012 as Associate Principal Horn, Mr. Johnson performed as Assistant Principal/Utility Horn of the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras, Principal Horn of both the Dayton Philharmonic and Richmond Symphony, and Fourth/Utility Horn of the Honolulu Symphony. He has also performed with the Houston Grand Opera, IRIS Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Saint Louis and San Antonio Symphonies, and as a Guest Principal Horn with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall with Gustavo Dudamel, The Philadelphia Orchestra with broadcasts on SiriusXM’s Symphony Hall with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Mr. Johnson has performed as a Concerto Soloist with the Dayton Philharmonic, Kinetic New Music Ensemble, Houston Symphony, New World Symphony, Texas Music Festival, at Chicago’s Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, and nationwide as a recitalist and chamber musician.
In the summers, Mr. Johnson has performed with the AIMS, Aspen, Brevard, Cascade, Colorado, Strings, Tanglewood, and Texas Music Festivals, The Hamptons Festival of Music, as well as the Perlman Music Program in both Shelter Island, NY and Sarasota, FL, and nine seasons with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony. He can be heard performing on numerous recordings, commercials, and soundtracks made with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras, Dayton Philharmonic, Horns United COVID-19 Horn Ensemble, Nashville String Machine Studio Orchestra, the Rice Horn Crew, and the Houston Symphony.
In the Fall of 2013, Mr. Johnson joined the faculty of the Moores School of Music as an Affiliate Artist at the University of Houston. Also a faculty member at the Atlantic, Brevard and Texas Music Festivals, he is in demand to lead masterclasses and lectures worldwide, most recently at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, in South America for the Filarmónica Joven in Bogota, Paipa, Pereira, and Medellín, Colombia, at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and for the Horns-United Covid 19 Pandemic Online Masterclass Series. Mr. Johnson is honored and grateful to join Elizabeth Freimuth and Gail Williams as Horn Faculty at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Mr. Johnson's previous and current students enjoy regular acceptance to the Top Collegiate Horn Programs in America and Europe, including full-scholarship acceptances to Curtis, Colburn, Eastman, Juilliard, New World Symphony, Northwestern, Rice, The Royal Conservatory and the University of Southern California.
His students' music festivals, competitions, and awards credits include the Banff Centre for the Arts, Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute, Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States, Juilliard’s Kovner Fellowship Grant, Interlochen Arts Camp and Academy, prize winner in the Siegfried’s Call Engelbert Schmid Horn Competition, Yamaha’s Young Performing Artist Program, as well as the Aspen, Atlantic, Brevard, Domaine Forget, Eastern, Hot Springs, Lucerne, Music in the Mountains, Pacific, Sarasota, Spoleto, and Texas Music Festivals, as well as the Cavaliers and Blue Stars Drum Corps.
Mr. Johnson's students have won auditions, held positions and counted regular performances with the Annapolis Symphony, Baton Rouge Symphony, Beaumont Symphony (TX), Berkeley Symphony, Boise Philharmonic, Canton (OH) Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, City Music Cleveland, Dayton Philharmonic, Florida Orchestra, Fresno Philharmonic, Hawaii Symphony, Houston Ballet Orchestra, Houston Grand Opera, Houston Symphony, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Mobile Symphony, Modesto Symphony, New World Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Oakland Symphony, Orquesta Filharmonica de Boca del Rio, Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Symphony, Round Rock Symphony (TX), San Antonio Symphony, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Springfield (OH) Symphony, United States Air Force Band of Middle America, United States Army Band, United States Army Band Pershing’s Own, United States Marine Band President's Own (Video Recording Engineer), United States Marine Corps Fleet Band, West Virginia Symphony, and Woodlands Symphony (TX). Mr. Johnson’s students have been awarded Faculty Positions at University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, University of Hawaii-Manoa, and Miami University of Ohio.
Mr. Johnson received his undergraduate degree in 2006 from Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. Additionally, Mr. Johnson earned the prestigious Leadership Institute for Non-Profit Executives certificate from Rice University, specializing in Development and Executive Management of Educational and Arts Organizations. Utilizing this additional training, he has helped a number of arts and non-profit organizations achieve their fundraising goals through various events and campaigns.
Mr. Johnson is a Lifetime Member of the International Horn Society and has authored and photographed for The Horn Call magazine and produced video content featured on Slipped Disc and The Strad. An outspoken advocate for men’s infertility, he has been the subject of and contributed to multiple articles in Psychology Today and the New York Times.
His family’s Music Time series, presented by the Houston Symphony during the Covid-19 pandemic, has been featured in a variety of press, including several local television spots, articles in the Houston Chronicle and Broadway World, podcasts by Encyclopedia Britannica, and has garnered well over half a million views and counting worldwide.
He is married to flutist, jeweler, and teacher Ariella Perlman (www.ariellaperlmanjewelry.com), with whom he answers endless questions from their young twin boys, Ezra and Reuben, joyfully plays driveway tennis with their first-grader Avner, all while changing diapers for their fourth son, Ira, born January 2022.