Robert Simpson is Founder and Artistic Director of the Grammy® award-winning Houston Chamber Choir.  He is also Canon for Music at the historic Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal), Houston, Texas and Lecturer of Church Music at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University.

Mr. Simpson is the recipient of Chorus America’s Michael Korn Founders Award for the Development of the Professional Choral Art and The American Prize.  The Houston Chamber Choir also received The American Prize and was honored by Chorus America with the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence.

Following his graduation with honors from Brown University and The School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Mr. Simpson studied for two years at the Hochschule für Musik, Cologne, Germany. His teachers have included organists Barclay Wood, Robert Baker and Michael Schneider and conductors Abraham Kaplan, Peter Neumann, Gustaf Sjökvist and Eric Ericson.

Mr. Simpson earned the Associate and Choirmaster Certificates from the American Guild of Organists, receiving the S. Lewis Elmer Prize for attaining the highest test scores.

Choirs under Mr. Simpson’s direction have toured the United States, Europe and Mexico, and performed before national conventions of Chorus America, the American Choral Directors Association, The American Guild of Organists, The Association of Anglican Musicians, and The Hymn Society of America. They have appeared nationally on CBS-TV, ABC-TV and American Public Radio.

Prior to moving to Texas, Mr. Simpson was Organist-Choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, Georgia and adjunct professor of organ at Georgia State University. He has also served as senior teaching fellow at the University of Texas, Austin.

An active clinician and guest conductor, he has been on the faculty of Lake Junaluska and Kanuga conference centers in North Carolina, the Sewanee Church Music Conference at the University of the South, the Evergreen Colorado Music Conference and choral festivals in Orlando, Sacramento and San Jose.

Mr. Simpson served as Vice Chair of the Standing Commission on Church Music for the Episcopal Church and on the editorial board of the African American hymnal, Lift Every Voice and Sing II. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of Chorus America, a national service organization addressing the needs of professional and volunteer choirs.