Violin

Robbie Herbst

Assistant Principal Second Violin

Robbie Herbst is a Chicago-based violinist and writer. He began his studies at the age of five in New Orleans, and he holds degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of Colorado at Boulder. His principal teachers include Claude Sim, Sally O’Reilly, and Charles Wetherbee. Robbie has spent summers at the Bowdoin, Aspen, and Mendocino Music Festivals, as a violin fellow in the National Repertory Orchestra, and in the Graduate Fellowship String Quartet in the Siena International Music Festival.

In addition to the ESO, Herbst is a member of the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra and the West Michigan Symphony. He is an alumnus of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and a substitute player in groups including the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Herbst has also collaborated with groups ranging from the International Contemporary Ensemble to the Wu-Tang Clan.

Robbie finds the greatest meaning and reward in collaborative and democratic musical settings. In 2020, he founded Music in Martin Acres, a Boulder-based musician collective that raised thousands of dollars for bail bond funds. He finished his Artist Diploma at CU by leading an unconducted chamber orchestra in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5.

Robbie is a dedicated teacher and educator, both in violin and in writing. His fiction has won awards and been published in lauded journals such as Gulf Coast and CRAFT Literary. He has a dog, Reba, who is a very good girl.

Robbie Herbst is a proud member of AFM Local 232-278 and 10-208.