Roth, Michael

Violinist and violist from Scarsdale, New York, who attended the Hoff-Barthelson Music School, Oberlin College and Conservatory and the University of Massachusetts. His teachers included Frances Magnes, Marilyn McDonald and Charles Treger.

On 7^th May 1988, he helped out Bruce Berg in his senior recital at Oberlin on Laszlo Dubrovay’s “Sei Duo”.

He and pianist Shauen Tirrell teamed up on 29^th January 1992 at Grace Episcopal Church in White Plains for an afternoon of music that comprised Ernest Chausson’s “Poeme”, Claude Debussy’s “Sonata” and the piano-violin section of Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time”.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, he was in the orchestra pit for productions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Once Upon a Mattress and The Scarlet Pimpernel.

He fiddled for the New York City Ballet in 2005 and 2006 in productions of Peter Martins’ “Octet” (with music by Felix Mendelssohn) and Jorma Elo’s “Slice to Sharp” (with music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber & Antonio Vivaldi).

In February 2009, he and fellow violinist Deborah Buck, violist David Gold, cellist Sarah Hewitt-Roth, horn player Thomas Jostlein, clarinetist Andrew Lamy, bassist Jonathan Storck and bassoonist Robert Wagner descended on the Woman’s Club where they interpreted Franz Schubert’s “Octet for Wind and Strings”.

He and violist Cyrus Beroukhim, cellists Greg Hefferman and Peter Sanders and violinist Roy Lewis participated in the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival at the Three Stallion Inn on 28^th March 2010, when they played another Schubert piece, “Quintet in C major, Op. 163, D. 956”.

In May 2010, he and Marilyn McDonald were the featured soloists of the Oberlin Conservatory Ensemble in performances of “Concerto for Two Violins and Strings” by Sir Malcolm Arnold.

Other groups with whom he has performed include the American Ballet Theatre, the American Composers Orchestra, the EOS Orchestra, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the New York Chamber Soloists, the New York Chamber Symphony, the New York Pops, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Virtuosi, the Sherman Chamber Ensemble, the Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the Willow Ensemble.

The Willow Ensemble appeared at Grace Church Chantry on 10^th June 2011, when they performed Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata BWV 82 (Ich habe genug) and “Suite in G minor, BWV 808” (“Englische”) and Franz Schubert’s “Die Forelle” and “Piano Quintet in A major” (“The Trout”).

On 11^th September 2011, the Sherman Chamber Ensemble, featuring Michael with cellist Eliot T. Bailen and pianist Margaret Kampmeier, played Bedrich Smetana’s “Piano Trio” in the Dr. S. Stevan Dweck Center at the Brooklyn Library.

They were at Christ Church in Pawling on 7^th January 2012 for “The Best of Baroque” concert series, which featured “Brandenburg Concerto No. 5” by J.S. Bach, “Christmas Concerto” by Corelli, “Piccolo Concerto” by Vivaldi and “Trio Sonata” by George Frideric Handel.

On 28^th April 2012, they offered up wall-to-wall Mendelssohn at the Jewish Community Center in Sherman. The program comprised the master’s “Piano Trio in D minor”, “Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 14”, “Sonata in D major” and “Songs without Words”.

They returned to the JCC on 30^th April 2012 for a recital of “Flute Quartet in A major” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, “Perhaps a Butterfly” by Bailen and “Serenade” by Ernst von Dohnanyi.

Recordings on which Michael appears include Evanescence, Golden Days by Jerry Hadley, Halcyon Days by Bruce Hornsby and Michael Jackson: The Remix Suite.

He can also be heard on the soundtracks of Across the Universe, The Alamo, The Brave One, Doubt, The Last Mimzy, The Manchurian Candidate and True Grit.

Sources:

Roth, Michael

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