Roland Roberts
Violin

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. As a prize-winner at a competition in Berlin he was described by the celebrated virtuoso Ruggerio Ricci as "one of the most talented violinists I have ever had the privilege to hear."
Roland has broadcast internationally and has been sponsored by the British Council to give concerts and masterclasses  in China, Australia and Argentina. He has also been leader of some of the finest British ensembles including the Koenig Ensemble, Chamber Music Company, the Thames Chamber Orchestra and for five years Leader/Director of the City of Oxford Orchestra. "Roland Roberts showed the violin virtuosity with which he so regularly delights Oxford audiences". (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, now 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". After he conducted  William Walton's Facade in the Sheldonian Theatre in January 2002, Tibor Varga wrote in the Oxford Times "...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."