Cape Symphony Principal Trombone Robert Hoveland was introduced to his instrument in his Texas elementary school. “Our band director hosted an ‘instrument petting zoo’ for kids to check out instruments and see what fit,” he remembers. “You submitted your top choices… mine were trumpet, because my best friend played, and saxophone, because Bill Clinton made it look cool. But the band director said ‘you seem pretty tall, here’s your trombone!’”
And the rest is history. “I never looked back… I was sure I wanted to go into music. Maybe too sure!” he laughs, recalling feeling pretty humbled in his early days at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. “I quickly saw I had a lot to learn. It was a very good place to be... you learn as much from other students as from the professors. Expectations are high, and there’s no slacking off.” Robert went on to earn a Master’s from the University of Texas, and a DMA from Boston University.
Being tall hasn’t hurt; a good wingspan comes in handy for trombonists. “You do have to reach sort of a long way,” says Robert. “With a flute, sax, or clarinet, you put down each successive key to make the instrument longer. A trombone is not like that. Notes that are close together aren’t necessarily close together on the slide… with B-flat and C, for example, one is all the way in and one is nearly all the way out.” Young beginners sometimes start with the smaller alto trombone.
Today, there’s still no slacking off! In addition to his leadership role with Cape Symphony, Robert plays with other orchestras and ensembles throughout New England. Off-Cape, you might catch him with the Hartford, New Bedford, or Vermont Symphonies, or sitting in with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Boston Ballet, the Back Bay Chorale, or even as far afield as Albany, NY. How does he manage everything? “You have to have very good calendar discipline,” he says.
Asked about his favorite Cape Symphony concerts over the years, Robert says “I really liked when we did The Ring Cycle as part of Opera Without Words [in 2019]. There’s a ton of great brass… it was very fun, and the last concert where we wore tails!”
“We work with a lot of really good soloists,” he continued, recalling especially didgeridoo artist William Barton from 2023’s Passport Down Under and the Roby Lakatos Ensemble from Passport to Hungary in 2024. Movie concerts are fun, too. “I like playing film to live orchestra. It can be challenging; when those things are recorded they’re not designed to be played through. The tempos can change suddenly and subtly, and playing with the film, it has to line up.”
Like all of us at Cape Symphony, Robert is looking forward to the 2026-27 season. “I’m excited to play The Planets! I always like West Side Story, and you don’t get to play samba very often... There’s something for everyone.”
No matter the program, he reflects, “there aren’t many things like the sound of a symphony orchestra. You have sometimes 70+ people on stage, all working together to create one unified thing that happens, then disappears into the ether. It takes a lot of people working hard to make it happen. You have to be there to experience it, and if you miss it, it’s gone.”
For the audience, a symphony orchestra concert can be a powerful shared experience. “You’re going to go sit in the dark with a bunch of other people and feel feelings,” he says. “It’s the closest thing to magic that there is.”
