Robert Merfeld began his piano studies at an early age in New York City with Leonid Hambro. He graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory as a student of Emil Danenberg and received a master's degree from The Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Beveridge Webster. While at Juilliard, he pursued art song accompaniment with Viennese tenor Hanz Heinz and also worked in the studios of Jennie Tourel, Oscar Shumsky, and Leonard Rose. Mr. Merfeld was a founding member of the Apple Hill Chamber Players, with whom he toured nationally and internationally for over twenty years.

He has participated in collaborative recitals throughout the United States with such artists as violinists Stanley Ritchie and Arnold Steinhardt and vocalists Dawn Upshaw and Lucy Shelton. He also has worked extensively with such other singers as William Sharp, William Parker, Jayne West and Jan DeGaetani. He has performed at the Aspen, Ravinia and Caramoor Festivals, in solo recitals at Merkin Hall and at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and as concerto soloist with the national orchestras of Costa Rica and Bolivia, the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestras of Brandeis, Harvard and Boston Universities. He is a frequent participant on the Emmanuel Music Chamber Music series and has been a guest artist with many chamber ensembles such as the Mendelssohn, Philadelphia and Muir Quartets. Mr. Merfeld has recorded on the Centaur and Sine Qua Non record labels and is currently on the piano and chamber music faculties of Boston University, Harvard University and the Longy School of Music.