Robert Spearing trained at the Royal College of Music, studying composition under Herbert Howells and conducting with Vernon Handley. He later gained a first class honours degree at the Open University, and went on to study with Vic Hoyland at the University of Birmingham. His compositions include choral works, two symphonies and an oboe concerto, as well as chamber music and music theatre pieces. A number of works have been broadcast on Radio 3, including the Second Symphony, a cantata - The Seagull - which was a BBC commission, and the sonata for oboe and piano - A Welsh Bestiary. He has held a number of teaching posts - at the Purcell School, the Birmingham Conservatoire, and at the University of Birmingham where he completed his doctorate in musical composition.
Since 1996 he has taught at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, and amongst other educational projects has been the collaboration with violinist Mary Cohen on four volumes for Faber Music for young string players, Superstart. His most recent work includes the solo cantata for tenor and piano She Solus, first heard in 2010 in Cardiff. This has just been adapted for distinguished Welsh baritone, Jeremy Huw Williams, for performance in the near future. Amongst current projects is a work for solo violin and mixed ensemble - Electric - and a Diamond Jubilee Fanfare for the RWCMD Symphonic Brass, who premiered his Commedia dell’Arte for Brass in March 2013.