Robert Hall Lewis was born in Portland, OR, and lives in Baltimore, where he teaches at Goucher College and the Peabody Institute; he is artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Baltimore. He is highly regarded not only as a composer of large-scale symphonic works, but also as a performer of considerable skill on jazz and classical trumpet and piano. He was a student of Pierre Monteux and is an established conductor, having performed with the major orchestras of Europe and America. His primary composition teachers were Nadia Boulanger and Hans Erich Apostel.