IN MEMORIAM
Roger Tapping (1960–2022)
Roger Tapping joined the Juilliard Quartet and the Juilliard School viola faculty in 2013, replacing Samuel Rhodes after his 44 year tenure. Mr Tapping had moved from London to the USA in 1995 to join the Takács Quartet. During his decade with them, their career included many Beethoven and Bartok cycles in major cities all over the world. Their Decca/London recordings, including the complete quartets of Bartók and Beethoven, placed them in Gramophone Magazine’s Hall of Fame and won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy and three more Grammy nominations, among many other awards.
In recent years he was on the viola faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he also directed the Chamber Music program. He has also taught at the Boston Conservatory and at Longy.
In recent summers his faculty activities included the Perlman Chamber Music Workshop, the Tanglewood String Quartet Seminar and Yellow Barn. He also gave viola master classes at Banff and at other festivals and conservatories in North America, Europe and Asia.
Born in England in 1960, Mr. Tapping played in a number of London’s leading chamber ensembles, making several highly-acclaimed CDs, before joining Britain’s longest established quartet, the Allegri Quartet. He taught at London’s Royal Academy of Music, was principal viola of the London Mozart Players, a member of the English Chamber Orchestra and a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
He performed frequently as a guest with many distinguished quartets from the U.S. and Europe, and he was a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society.
Mr. Tapping was a member of the Order of the Knight Cross of the Hungarian Republic, held an honorary doctorate from the University of Nottingham, and was a fellow of the Guildhall School of Music in London.
