Robert Yekovich

Composer and educator Robert Yekovich is the Elma Schneider Professor of Music at Rice University and a member of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s Board of Directors. His career brings together composition, teaching, and conservatory leadership, including his tenure as dean of Rice’s Shepherd School of Music from 2003 to 2021.

At Rice, Yekovich strengthened the school’s faculty, expanded scholarship support, and advanced its orchestral, operatic, and chamber music programs. His deanship included Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra performances at Carnegie Hall, a partnership with the New York Philharmonic’s Global Academy, and an exchange with Leipzig’s Hochschule für Musik und Theater. He also oversaw the completion of Brockman Hall for Opera.

Previously, as dean of music at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, he established the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute and helped shape plans for a new music building and concert hall. His compositions have received performances and broadcasts throughout North and South America, and his honors include a Fromm Music Foundation commission.

Yekovich earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Columbia University. His teaching appointments have included Columbia, Connecticut College, and the University of Denver.