Rob Fisher (conductor)

Rob Fisher is an American music director, conductor, arranger and pianist. He was the founding music director and conductor of the New York City Center Encores! series from 1994 to 2005. He is the leader of the Coffee Club Orchestra, which was the house band for Garrison Keillor’s radio broadcasts from 1989-1993.

Fisher grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, where he began taking piano lessons at age 6. He attended Duke University as an undergraduate and attended American University for his MA in piano performance.

After Fisher arrived in New York City as the onstage pianist for the musical revue A History of the American Film in 1978, he worked on the Berkshire Theatre Festival’s production of the 1933 George and Ira Gershwin musical Let 'Em Eat Cake—the first-ever revival of the piece. Later that year, he was a guest pianist for "By Ira... By George," a gala benefit concert at Carnegie Hall celebrating the 80th Anniversary of the birth of George Gershwin that featured Ginger Rogers, Cab Calloway, Barbara Cook, Michael Feinstein and others.

After several years of regional theater and Broadway National tours, in 1987 Fisher was enlisted to prepare the musical artists for the international Gershwin Celebration at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which featured performers such as Leonard Bernstein, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bob Dylan. This led to his conducting concert productions the Gershwins' Of Thee I Sing and Let ‘Em Eat Cake under the guidance of noted conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who was the music director of the entire three-week celebration. These productions continued a professional association with the works of George Gershwin, one further cemented in the late 1990s when Fisher served as the artistic advisor of Carnegie Hall's two-year Gershwin Centennial Celebration, and most recently when he supervised the creation of the score for the Broadway musical An American in Paris.

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