As an author, he was a music critic and columnist for The New York Times for more than forty years as well as a writer of numerous books, including two bestsellers he co-authored with pianist and comedian Victor Borge.

[1] His parents were Isaac Sherman, a Ukrainian businessman, and the Lithuanian pianist Nadia Reisenberg,[2] and he was the nephew of thereminist Clara Rockmore.

[3] Sherman began his broadcasting career at the radio station WQXR in New York City as a typist-clerk, eventually working his way up to program director and then senior consultant.

[4] Several decades later, in 1993, the program's gala finale was broadcast from the Merkin Concert Hall in New York City and featured several well known classical musicians, including Victor Borge, Marilyn Horne, and Isaac Stern.

[14] He served on the advisory boards of a multitude of cultural organizations, for whom he performed such duties as competition judge, pre-concert lecturer, panel moderator, and fundraising emcee.

In collaboration with his brother, Alexander Sherman, Robert completed the project of releasing a book about his mother, entitled Nadia Reisenberg: A Musician's Scrapbook, which was published by International Piano Archives[17] in Maryland in 1986.