Roger Zahab

Roger Zahab’s multifaceted career as composer, violinist, conductor, teacher and writer has placed him at one of the most interesting vantage points of our time. His work straddles so many areas of endeavor that there have been suspicions of a band of clones working all over the country each under his name.

He has written much chamber, vocal and orchestral music in addition to work in dance, theater and video. Recently, recordings have been made of levitation of pianos during a waltz played by Eric Moe on his new recording: New Waltzes for Piano and of Earth's Jig and Silence Orchids played by Bennett Lerner. Both of these recordings are available on Albany Records. Recent seasons have included numerous performances of Amnesia Kiss by 'cellist David Russell; Vigil under the direction of Samuel Gordon in Cleveland's Severance Hall, The Earth's Jig and Silence Orchids by pianist Bennett Lerner in Asia, Europe and the US; reaching after by 'cellist Lawrence Stomberg, i still dream for steel drum by Josh Quillen and bicoastal by the percussion duo two - Dale Speicher and Chris Leonard. Other recent works include an opera for the Ohio Chautauqua 2000 Festival, Uncovered by Night; a fanfare, Afterglow, for the Tuscarawas Philharmonic celebrating Aaron Copland's centennial; radiant for violin and piano; for all the other days for trombone and piano; and Ohio transparence for piano trio. He is currently at work on a vast multimedia project called Ohio Telechron, a rapid transit device which uses various kinds of Time to explore the connections between identity, history, and community.

Daedalus New Music Group
Daedalus String Quartet:
Philip Baldwin, Roger Zahab, Jerry Miskell, James Hinkley

As a violinist, Zahab has premiered more than a hundred works by such composers as John Cage, David Macbride, Steven Mackey, Ursula Mamlok, Eric Moe, J.N. Kwabena Nketia, Dennis Riley, Tison Street, Orianna Webb and Christian Wolff and has recorded some of them for the Truemedia, Albany and Koch International Classics labels. His version of John Cage's Thirteen Harmonies for violin and keyboard instrument is published by C.F.Peters Corporation.

Zahab’s conducting repertoire encompasses the history of ensemble music from Andrea Gabrielli up to the present. He is conductor of the Music on the Edge Chamber Orchestra, which specializes in the newest music, and is also director of the University of Pittsburgh Orchestra, where he seeks to give students a well-rounded overview of Western music while exploring works from outside those increasingly porous boundaries. His appearances with the Music on the Edge Chamber Orchestra and University Chamber Orchestra have included works by Del Tredici, Knussen, Ligeti (with pianist Ursula Oppens), Mahler, Nielsen, Mathew Rosenblum (with the Raschér Quartet) and Judith Weir. He has also appeared with many other groups, including the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, the Ohio Ballet, and the Alliance for American Song, in rarely heard works by Wallingford Riegger, Dennis Riley and Amadeo Roldan, as well as new operas and multi-media works.

Zahab was awarded the first Louis Lane Scholarship (given by the Akron Symphony Orchestra) in 1978 and received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant in 1995 and an Individual Artist Fellowship in 2005. A devoted teacher, he created the Palisades Quartet project composed of students aged 12 -16 to explore ways to foster creative and independent thinking and performance. He taught at Mount Union College from 1993-99 and was founder/director of the New Music Group at the University of Akron for thirteen seasons. Zahab has been Director of the Orchestra and violin instructor at the University of Pittsburgh since 1993 and in 1999 became a full-time Lecturer. At home in Akron he helps foster the ideal of communal music-making with the Highland Square Philharmonic.

View Roger Zahab's resume in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.