Artistic Director About Helicon

Oboist, JAMES ROE, is immersed in a wide spectrum of New York City’s diverse musical and cultural life, and has performed on four continents in chamber, orchestral, opera, and ballet settings.

In 2006, he was appointed Artistic Director of The Helicon Foundation (helicon.org), succeeding Helicon’s founder, Albert Fuller.  Since taking the reigns, Mr. Roe relocated Helicon’s events to a beautiful music room on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and inaugurated a ten-volume recording project called The Helicon Salon Recordings that will explore 17th through late-19th century chamber music repertoire rarely heard on period instruments.

Mr. Roe made his Lincoln Center concerto debut on the opening night of the 2004 Mostly Mozart Festival with Louis Langrée conducting Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, K. 297b.  In 2009 he performed Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Oboes in D Minor, RV 535 in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall with The Little Orchestra Society. His solo recordings include Alec Wilder’s “Air for English Horn, Strings and Percussion,” and Seymour Barab’s “Dances for Oboe and Strings,” which Fanfare Magazine praised as “glowing and utterly captivating.”  Additionally, he has recorded for Sony (2001 Grammy Award, Musical Theater), Decca (2008 Grammy nomination, Best Classical Crossover), Atlantic, Nonesuch, Koch, Bridge, and Vox.

In great demand for his orchestral playing, Mr. Roe is a member of the Brooklyn-based orchestra The Knights (theknightsnyc.com) and has appeared as guest-principal oboe and solo English horn with New York’s finest orchestras, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, New York City Ballet, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Composers’ Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.  During the 2004-2005 season, he served as Principal Oboe of the Houston Grand Opera and the previous season as Assistant Principal Oboe of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.  Festival appearances include the 2010 May Festival at Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, The Opening Festival of Zankel Hall, The Lincoln Center Festival, Dresden Music Festival, Aguascalientes (Mexico), Caramoor, Manchester, Moab, Tanglewood, Downtown NYC River to River Festival, and BAM Next Wave Festival.

For ten years, Mr. Roe was a member of the award-winning Zéphyros Winds with whom he concertized widely across the United States.  While he was a member of Zéphyros, the ensemble was presented four times by Lincoln Center, including the “Great Performers Series,” and at major venues including Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, The Library of Congress, Wolf Trap, Duke University, Tannery Pond, The Movado Hour at New York’s Baryshnikov Art Center, Da Camera Society of Los Angeles, Skaneateles Festival, and NPR’s “Performance Today.” Additionally, his chamber music programs have been heard at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Longy School, Dumbarton Oaks, Montgomery Chamber Music Organization, Tulsa Friends of Music, and Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music.

Mr. Roe has toured extensively as a guest artist with The Imani Winds, and has performed chamber music with Rieko Aizawa, Jennifer Frautschi, Albert Fuller, Nina Lee, Pedja Muzijevic, Nicholas Phan, David Shifrin, Laurie Smukler, Mark Steinberg, and Osmo Vänskä.  He has given master classes, lectures, and coached chamber music at The Eastman School, Idyllwild Arts Academy, The Juilliard School, The Mannes School of Music, The Manhattan School of Music, SUNY Stony Brook, and The Yale School of Music, among others around the country.

In the popular music world, Mr. Roe has performed with Sir Elton John, James Taylor, Tony Bennett, Metallica, Vanessa Williams, Andrea Bocelli, and Audra McDonald.  He has performed on Saturday Night Live, and appears in a music video of Shania Twain.  In 2006 he appeared in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall with Canadian singer-song writer Jane Siberry.

A native of Northern Michigan, Mr. Roe comes from a family comprising four generations of small-town preachers.  For ten summers, he worked on a 500-acre cherry farm to put himself through music school, eventually moving to New York City in 1990.  There, he attended The Juilliard School as a student of Elaine Douvas where he earned a Masters degree and studied chamber music and performance practice with harpsichordist, Albert Fuller.  He also holds a Bachelors of Music with High Honor from Michigan State University, where he studied with Daniel Stolper and was a Presser Scholar.

Mr. Roe is an avid collector of contemporary art, primarily works on paper.  His collection also includes paintings, photographs, ceramics, and sculptures by established, emerging, and “outsider” artists from the United States, Japan, and South America.

jamesroe.net