Robert Sheena
Lecturer in Music, Oboe and English Horn; Co-Director, Oboe Workshop, BU Tanglewood Institute
Robert Sheena joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as its English horn player in May 1994, at the start of that year’s Boston Pops season. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of California at Berkeley and his Master of Music degree from Northwestern University School of Music. During the 1986–1987 season, he performed frequently with the Chicago Symphony as an extra player. Mr. Sheena was English horn and assistant principal oboe of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and of the San Antonio Symphony from 1991 to 1994. In 1996 at Tanglewood he was a featured soloist in André Previn’s Reflections with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
As part of an ongoing effort to expand the repertoire for his instrument, he gave the world premiere of Gabriel Gould’s Watercolors for English horn and chamber orchestra, which was commissioned for him by the Albany Symphony Orchestra and was recorded with that ensemble in November 1998. In January 1999, Mr. Sheena was the featured soloist in Sibelius’s The Swan of Tuonela, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Robert Spano. Mr. Sheena was a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow in 1984. His principal teachers included English horn player Grover Schiltz, Chicago Symphony principal oboe Ray Still, and San Francisco Ballet Orchestra principal oboe William Banovetz.
