[2] While in his sophomore year at the University of Arizona, Robert Williams won the principal bassoon position of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.
In 1974, at the age of 24, he won the principal bassoon position of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
[2] He has also played summer engagements with the Minnesota Orchestra and Boston Symphony at Tanglewood.
Together with his wife Treva Womble, former English hornist of the Detroit Symphony, he is the owner of Womble/Williams Double Reeds, a home business that specializes in products for the oboe and bassoon.
Williams plays on a Fox model 601 bassoon, serial number 55,555 built in South Whitley, Indiana in 2012.