Richard Roberts
Richard Roberts, violinist, is currently serving as concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Prior to his Montreal appointment, he was for eight years assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra under conductor Lorin Maazel.
Mr. Roberts received his early violin tutelage with the distinguished teacher Norman Carol, and at the age of seventeen, made his debus as soloist with Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting. He then pursued studies at Indiana University where he studied violin with Josef Gingold, and chamber music with Janos Starker and William Primrose. He also studied later in Geneva, Switzerland with the celebrated master of the violin Henryk Szeryng.
The artist has appeared in solo and chamber music recitals in Canada, South America, Australia, Mexico, the United States, and Europe, as performances with the orchestras of Minnesota, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland, Edmonton, Montreal, and many others. He has performed the entire cycle of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for violin alone at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and was a frequent lecturer in the Cleveland Orchestra pre-concert lecture series.
In Montreal, Mr. Roberts has appeared in a variety of solo roles including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra recordings of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Capriccio Espagnol, Elgar’s Falstaff, and many other works. He has been featured as soloist with the MSO on numerous occasions very often in rarely performed works such the concerti of Richard Strauss, Louis Gruenberg, Robert Schumann, and many others. Mr. Roberts has appeared in Australia as a guest of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, performing the Concerto No. 1 (1907) of Bela Bartok, and returned to Australia to participate in the Australian International Chamber Music Festival.
He has served on the faculties of many distinguished universities, given master classes throughout the world, and served as an editor for Ovation Press Music Publishing Company.
