Robert B. Downing

Chairman and CEO, Apollo Orchestra President, Downing Family Foundation

Robert B. Downing, a long-time supporter of classical music organizations, co-founded the Apollo Chamber Orchestra with Virginia Lum in October 2010. Mr. Downing, currently a trustee of the Washington National Opera, an affiliate of Washington DC's Kennedy Center, also is a member of the Opera's executive committee. Mr. Downing primarily is known, however, for administering and financially sustaining innovative youth-oriented and school-affiliated music programs. For many years he has served as a member of the Landon Symphonette's Board of Directors, and has been the primary financial underwriter of its annual youth string competition. The Landon Symphonette, Bethesda, MD, is one of a handful of professional/student mentoring orchestras in the nation. For several decades Mr. Downing was a senior executive and a co-owner of the Oxford Group of companies, a prodigious real estate developer, investor and manager, also based in Bethesda. Oxford was one of the nation's largest owners and financiers of apartment properties until its sale in the early 2000's. Mr. Downing is a financial supporter of the educational mission of his alma mater--Case Western Reserve University School of Law--and has served as a member of its visiting and various dean's advisory committees for many years.