Robert Starer (8 January 1924[1] in Vienna – 22 April[2] 2001 in Kingston, New York) was an Austrian-born American composer, pianist and educator.
After the 1938 plebiscite in which Austria voted for annexation by Nazi Germany, Starer left for Palestine and studied at the Jerusalem Conservatory with Josef Tal.
In World War II he served in the British Royal Air Force, and in 1947 he settled in the United States.
Robert Starer taught at the Juilliard School, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where he became a distinguished professor in 1986.
He lived with writer Gail Godwin for some thirty years; the two collaborated on several librettos.