Roger Tapping, viola

In 2013 Roger Tapping became the third person to hold the viola chair in the Juilliard String Quartet since its inception in 1946.

For ten years from 1995 he was a member of the Takács Quartet, during which time their international career included Beethoven cycles in New York, Paris, London, Sydney, Cleveland and Los Angeles, and Bartók cycles in New York, London, Madrid, Tokyo (for TV), Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. Their recordings for Decca/London, including the complete quartets of Bartók and Beethoven, have won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy and three more Grammy nominations, three Japan Record Academy Chamber Music Awards, the BBC Music Disc of the Year Award, and the Classical Brits Award for Ensemble Album of the Year. As a member of the Quartet, Tapping taught regularly at the Aspen Festival, the Taos Quartet School, and the Guildhall School of Music.

Born in England, Tapping played in a number of London's leading chamber ensembles, making several highly acclaimed CDs, and toured for the British Council in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, before joining Britain's longest established quartet, the Allegri Quartet, with whom he played from 1989 to 1995. He taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London, was principal viola of the London Mozart Players, and was a member of the English Chamber Orchestra. He was a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and a frequent participant in Sandor Végh's International Musicians' Seminar in Cornwall, England.

Summer festivals include the Banff Viola Master Classes, the Perlman Chamber Music Workshop, the Tanglewood String Quartet Seminar, and the Yellow Barn Festival. He has performed as a recitalist and concerto soloist in addition to playing regularly as a soloist on WGBH, and making frequent guest appearances with quartets from the U.S. and Europe. He was an Artist Member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, was a jury member and recitalist at the 2006 Tertis International Viola Competition, and was on the jury of the 2009 London String Quartet Competition.

Tapping is a member of the Order of the Knight Cross of the Hungarian Republic, holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Nottingham, and is a fellow of the Guildhall School of Music in London.