Robert Lehmann is Professor of Music at the Osher School of Music at the University of Southern Maine where he conducts the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra and the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his duties at USM, he is Music Director of the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra (now in his 27th year) and the White Mountain Bach Festival. He holds degrees in Violin Performance from the University of the Pacific, the Eastman School and Boston University, and has been a fellow at the Aspen Festival's American Academy of Conducting and at the Conductors Institute at Bard College. Dr. Lehmann has concertized as violinist and conductor, in his native Mexico, throughout the US, Central America, Europe, and Ukraine. He has been of frequent guest conductor with the Portland Symphony, Portland Ballet, and has conducted All-State and Festival Orchestras from Maine to California and Hawaii. He has been an adjudicator the National Orchestra Festival at the ASTA National Convention and is in demand as a performer, conductor, teacher, speaker, and is listed in Who's Who in American Music.
He has performed as first violinist of the Meliora Quartet and concertmaster of the Opera Maine Orchestra and the Choral Art Society. His CD, "Chamber Music for String by Manuel M. Ponce" was issued by Centaur Records in 2009. Prior to his appointment at USM, he was Music Director of the Mozart Society Orchestra at Harvard, and on the conducting staff of the Greater Boston, Rhode Island, and Empire State Youth Orchestras. He has given numerous word and regional premieres including Elliot Schwartz's' "Concerto VI: Mr. Jefferson", Portland Ballet's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and most recently Daniel Crozier's double clarinet concerto "Sprit", and Daniel Sonenberg's 'kintuskuroi'. His 2012 performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 was named the top performance event of the Portland concert season by The Portland Press Herald.
Recent highlights have included return engagements to perform a recital at the American Church in Paris, with the Assisi (Italy) Performing Arts Music Festival and conducting the Festival Orchestra at the Region IX Texas Festival. Together with his USM colleague Dr. Elizabeth Goryunova, Dr. Lehmann recently published an article focusing on leadership "lessons" gleaned from the world of conductors and symphony orchestras as they pertain to wider, global leadership applications. Achieving Harmony: Leadership and Followership Lessons from the Orchestra,was recently published in The Springer Handbook of Global Leadership and Followership: Integrating the Best Leadership Theory and Practice. Subsets of this research were also published in the "From the Podium" on-line journal in 2022, and presented virtually at the International Leadership Association's Annual Global Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in October 2021.
2023 highlights have included a faculty recital at USM featuring the Bartok Contrasts and Chausson Concerto for violin, piano and string quartet, conducting the 2023 Maine All-State Festival Orchestra, and performing at Carnegie Hall with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP). This summer features; conducting the Portland Symphony Orchestra's summer Pops, a return to the Assisi Performing Arts Festival in Italy, the White Mountain Musical Arts Bach Festival, and conducting Maine State Ballet's Nutcracker later this season.
Dr. Lehmann primarily plays a 2014 Benjamin Ruth (Swampscott, MA) violin and resides in Scarborough, Maine with his wife Kim, a violist with the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and his partner in the "Lehmann Duo".