Robert Stern attended University of Rochester and the Eastman School. His teachers include Lukas Foss and Howard Hanson. In addition to composition awards, Stern has enjoyed fellowships at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Millay Colony.

Stern’s music has been widely performed throughout the United States, South America, Europe, Japan, China and Israel. Gunther Schuller, Ralph Shapey, Joan Tower, Joel Smirnoff, Howard Hanson are among those who have programmed Stern’s music. Commissions include the Library of Congress, Krosnick and Kalish, the Manchester Cello Festival, the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, and the United States Holocaust Museum. Stern’s oratorio, Shofar, was premiered by Coro Allegro of Boston in 2009.

Stern is Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and taught at Hampshire College. Stern’s works have been recorded on the CRI, Opus One, Polygram, Albany, Oxingale, Naxos and Navona labels. He is published by G. Schirmer, Transcontinental Music, Music for Percussion, Vivace Press.