Conductor and Violinist

Roland Roberts

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Roland Roberts studied at the Royal Academy in London with Emanuel Hurwitz and later as a Fulbright Scholar in the USA with Shmuel Ashkenasi where he gained a Masters Degree in Music. Roland has broadcast internationally and has been sponsored by the British Council to concertize and give masterclasses in China, Australia and Argentina. He has also been leader of some of the finest British ensembles including the Koenig Ensemble, the Thames Chamber Orchestra and for four years Leader/Director of the City of Oxford Orchestra. "Roland Roberts showed the violin virtuosity with which he so regularly delights Oxford audiences". (The Oxford Times)

For Meridian records he has recorded three Piano Trios by Beethoven's contemporary - Hummel, the Violin & Piano Works of Joaquin Turina and most recently a second CD of Turina's chamber music. "Roberts produces a rapturous, sweet tone that, with its fastish, unexaggerated vibrato, could not be more apt for this exquisite, impressionist-aware Hispanic repertoire." (The STRAD)

Roland also features as solo violinist in a new British film entitled "Another Life" released in June 2001 and shortly to be available on DVD. Other work includes composing and arranging music for BBC Television. His educational CD Baroque a-bye Baby is sold nationally by the NCT, and Passive Music for Accelerated learning has worldwide distribution. For four years Roland was principal conductor of the Fulham Symphony Orchestra. His conducting of Verdi's La Traviata at the Hackney Empire was described by Opera Magazine as a performance of "considerable style and verve". Of a recent performance of William Walton's Facade, "...in Roland Roberts I saw one of the most musical conductors, serving the music with sheer mastery, and it made me wish I had had more chance to play with such a musician." (Tibor Varga writing in the Oxford Times).

Roland has recently moved out of London and now lives in the beautiful Suffolk countryside on the river Deben with his wife, Angela and chocolate Labrador, Bessie.


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