Robert William Anderson

1942 -

Robert Anderson, a trumpet and tuba player, taught at eleven academies and two colleges during a career that spanned forty-seven years. A native of Iowa, he graduated from Oak Park Academy in 1960. That fall he enrolled as a music major at Union College, where he completed a B.S. in music education in 1965. He started teaching that fall at Madison Academy in Tennessee.

Anderson subsequently taught at Highland View, Maplewood, Andrews, and Thunderbird academies, before serving as band director at Southern College of Seventh-day Adventists, now Southern Adventist University, from 1979 to 1982.

Eight years later, after teaching at Adelphian and Chisolm Trail academies, Anderson accepted leadership of the band program at Southwestern Adventist University, where he taught for the next thirteen years, until 1998. During the last six of those years, he was chair of the SWAU Fine Arts/Music department.

From 1998 until 2000, he taught at Shenandoah Valley Academy in Virginia and then served as band director for the next five years at La Sierra Adventist Academy, until he retired there in 2005. He also conducted the junior high and grades 5 and 6 bands while at LSAA. He came out of retirement to teach for two more years at Great Lakes Adventist Academy in Michigan, retiring for a second time in 2007. He came out of retirement a second time to teach at Cascade Christian Academy in 2009 and for a third time in 2011 to direct the band at Great Lakes Academy for a year.

Following graduate study at the University of Nebraska and at Andrews University, Anderson completed a master's degree at AU in 1972. Additional doctoral study was taken at the University of North Texas in 1996-97. He studied trumpet with Bill Knevitt and Claude Gordon.

While at SVA, Anderson's band won first place in Class C and third place overall (A, B, and C divisions) in a regional competition. Through the years, Anderson has often taught in the elementary schools associated with his academy band programs. He was guest director of a number of academy and elementary festival bands.

ds/2012

Sources: Interview/Conversations, 2008, 2009; Northern Union Outlook, 1 September 1972, 5,7; personal knowledge.