Dr. Robert Sears enjoys an active career balancing his love of teaching and performing as both a classical and jazz musician. He joined the faculty at West Virginia University in the Fall of 2020 as an Assistant Professor of Trumpet.

Previous performance engagements include being a substitute with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra (regular 2nd/3rd trumpet sub from 2021-present), extra with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Orchestra, extra with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, second trumpet in the Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra (2019-2020), member of Sycamore Brass (2018-2020), founding member of the Afro-Caribbean Jazz Collective and Iron Post Jazz Orchestra, and substitute with the Heartland Festival Orchestra, Illinois Symphony Orchestra, Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia da Camera Chamber Orchestra, and Urbana Pops Orchestra.

Dr. Sears has been a featured soloist with West Virginia University's Wind Symphony (2022), Millikin University's Wind Ensemble (2019), Illinois Wesleyan University’s Wind Ensemble (2018), the University of Illinois Summer Band (2017 and 2016), and Brigham Young University-Idaho’s Symphony Band at the 2014 CBDNA conference in Reno, Nevada with the BYU-Idaho Faculty Brass Quintet. Dr. Sears has also performed alongside jazz artists Chip Stephens, Glenn Wilson, Jeff Halsey, Mark Tonelli, Jim Pugh, John Clayton, Ernie Watts, Doc Severinsen, Jared Sims and his esteemed colleagues at WVU Alton Merrell, Brian Wolfe, and Paul Thompson. In both 2019 and 2018, he was a featured soloist and clinician at Illinois Wesleyan University’s Jazz Festival, and he has arranged and recorded horn section parts for various EP releases with gospel, R&B, and soul artist Julius Adams. He has also performed with commercial singers Landau Eugene Murphy Jr. and Trevor Nicholas.

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