Lifetime Achievement Award 2026

Robert Edwin has been a professional singer/actor since 1965, a recording artist since 1966, an ASCAP songwriter since 1967, a published author since 1968, and an independent studio singing teacher since 1975. He has sung Bach cantatas in church cathedrals and rock songs in Greenwich Village, New York coffeehouses; recorded for Avant Garde and Fortress Records, and toured extensively throughout the United States and abroad with stops that include Carnegie Hall and Town Hall, countless TV and radio shows, and gigs in some very seedy bars.

Robert’s diverse performing career is matched by an equally diverse teaching career. Preaching what he practiced at the Robert Edwin Studio, LLC in Cinnaminson, New Jersey, he became a leading authority on Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM) and child voice pedagogy. He has served on the voice faculties of the University of Michigan, the New Jersey School of the Arts, Burlington County College (NJ), the Applied Music Staff of Camden County College (NJ), and was a frequent faculty member at the Voice Foundation’s Annual Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice. Internationally, Robert has led master classes and workshops in Canada, the Bahamas, and Australia.

Mr. Edwin was a chapter author for the Oxford University Press 2012 Handbook of Music Education as well as for the book, Pediatric Voice Disorders (Plural Publishing 2008). In partnership with CCC-SLP Barbara Arboleda, he created a groundbreaking DVD on child voice training, The Kid & the Singing Teacher (Inside View Press 2008).

More recently, he is a featured Master Teacher in Elizabeth Ann Benson’s Training Contemporary Commercial Singers (Compton Publishing 2020), Elizabeth Blades’ A Spectrum of Voices-Second Edition (Rowman & Littlefield 2018), Matthew Hoch’s So You Want to Sing CCM (Rowman & Littlefield 2018) and has a “recipe” in Brian Winnie’s The Voice Teacher’s Cookbook (Meredith Music 2018). Robert’s column, "The Bach to Rock Connection" (1985-2002), was the first column in the NATS Journal dedicated to CCM (“nonclassical”) voice pedagogy. He became an Associate Editor of the NATS Journal of Singing shepherding “Popular Song and Music Theater (2002-2021), and finally, the third iteration of the column, “Singing Acappella to Zydeco” (2021-2023). He continues to serve on the Editorial Board of Australian Voice and remains an active member of the prestigious American Academy of Teachers of Singing (AATS). www.robertedwinstudio.com