Maestro Robert W. Butts has entertained and thrilled audiences through his passionate conducting and performing. He currently serves as Music Director/Conductor of The Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey and New Jersey Concert Opera and as artistic director with Opera At Florham. Since 2006, he has provided dynamic leadership and inspiration as Artistic Director for the Summer Festival of Baroque Music held in Madison, New Jersey. In addition, he has conducted performances featuring The New Jersey Symphony, The Plainfield Symphony, The Society of Musical Arts Orchestra, Harmonium Choral Society, the Oratorio Singers and the Masterwork Chorus. Maestro Butts has been a regular guest conductor with orchestras and opera companies in Eastern Europe. He is a 2010 Finalist for the American Prize in Orchestral Conducting.
One of New Jersey's leading opera performers. Maestro Butts is the only conductor to have led three operas of Richard Wagner in New Jersey (Die Walkure, Das Rheingold, and Siegfried) and three Handel operas in New Jersey (Giulio Cesare, Semele, and Acis and Galatea. 
His performance of Die Walkure was praised in Wagner Notes: Newsletter of the Wagner Society of New York where Lisa Young wrote: "Under the luminous baton of Maestro Robert Butts…brought forth a beautifully nuanced performance from his musicians.” He has recently conducted operas by Verdi, Mozart, and Puccini to great acclaim. His performance of Puccini's Tosca in June 2009 was described by Peter Stevens in thealternativepress.com as "a complete operatic experience, the full measure of the work vibrating powerfully in every bar."
With The Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey, Maestro Butts has conducted memorable performances of music from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern periods. Concerts have featured a mixture of favorite orchestral masterpieces as well as gems of the repertoire performed first in the area by Maestro Butts and the musicians of the orchestra.
Among the highlights of recent years have been concerts of Beethoven's Symphony #9 with the New Jersey Symphony at the Nous Theatre in Blairstown, New Jersey; Bruckner’s Symphony #6 with The Orchestra Society of Philadelphia; and performances with the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic in Zlin, Czech Republic.
Maestro Butts is also a revered lecturer throughout New Jersey on a variety of musical topics. He lectures frequently for The New Jersey Council for the Humanities. He is on the faculties of Montclair State University and The College of Saint Elizabeth. He has taught at Drew University, County College of Morris and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Special talks have been presented for New Jersey State Opera, The New Jersey Symphony, The State Theater, NJPAC and at libaries, retirement communities and museums across the state.
Combining his conducting and lecturing talents, Maestro Butts has developed a series for cable television broadcast called Concerts and Conversations. These include a lecture on a specific composition with audio and video excerpts followed by the complete performance.
Maestro Butts received his doctoral degree in conducting in December 2009 from The American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.
As a composer, Maestro Butts has had many chamber music works performed throughout the New York/New Jersey area as well as several of his orchestral works. His musical theater work Gesualdo, written in collaboration with playwright Jewel Seehaus-Fisher, was performed at the New York Dramatists Guild in Manhattan. He is currently composing an opera to a libretto by Seehaus-Fisher based on the lives of Ulysses S. Grant and Mark Twain. He is a major contributor to the contemporary music performances at The Bell and Barter Theatre and Cultural Arts Center in Rockaway presented by In Mid Air Productions.