BIOGRAPHY
A native of St.Petersburg Roman has studied violin at the Rimsky- Korsakov Conservatory of Music with Professor V. Mazel.
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After emigrating to Israel in 1990 he continued his studies as a violist at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music joining the class of Professor G.Lewertoff and was soon invited to become a Principal Violist of the Tel Aviv Symphony Orchestra, playing at the same time in the New Tel Aviv String Quartet which has won several prizes in different international competitions and festivals.
In the year of 2000 Roman Spitzer, being at the moment the youngest member of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Zubin Mehta, wins a position of principal violist and holds it till his move to The Netherlands, where, in 2016, he wins a principal violist position at the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Simultaneously, he has been invited to lead the viola section of numerous orchestras including London Philharmonic Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Estonian Festival Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Brussels Philharmonic and many others.
During these years Roman has been collaborating with a variety of renowned conductors, including Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Kurt Masur, Ricardo Muti, Yuri Temirkanov, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Daniel Barenboim, Mstislav Rostropovich, etc., appearing in the Grand Halls of Berliner Philharmoniker, Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Suntory Hall, Vienna Musikverein, Teatro Colon, etc.
COLLABORATIONS
As a chamber musician, he has been performing and recording with a number of prominent artists, to name a few: Natalia Gutman, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Leonidas Kavakos, Steven Isserlis, Maxim Vengerov, Vadim Repin, Julian Rachlin, Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham, Sol Gabetta, Peter Wispelwey, Guy Braunstein, Stephen Kovacevic, Konstantin Lifshitz, with an invitation to international chamber music festivals, such as Verbier Festival, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Schubertiade Festival, Solsberg Festival, Schleswig- Holstein Music Festival, etc.
SOLO CAREER and CONDUCTING
solo
Roman’s solo performances at the Grosser Musikvereinsaal in Vienna, Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Seoul Arts Center and others, with the orchestras, such as: the Israel Philharmonic and the Gewandhaus Chamber Orchestra under direction of Zubin Mehta, Ilan Volkov and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos received the highest critic’s reviews.
conducting
He continued studying conducting with Maestro Yoel Levi and participated in masterclasses with eminent conductors such as the late Ilya Musin, Riccardo Muti, Kurt Masur. This was followed by invitations as a conductor with numerous orchestras worldwide: The Israel Philharmonic, NKO Chamber Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony, Haifa Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and others.
teaching.
As a prominent teacher of Tel Aviv Academy of Music and Rotterdam Codarts University for the Arts, Roman Spitzer developed his methods of teaching the students which helped them in winning auditions and becoming members of such orchestras as National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands, Geneva Camerata, Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Basel, etc.