Karen Rostron

Dr. Karen Rostron enjoys a varied musical career. Praised for her “intelligence as an interpreter” (The Strad magazine), she appears regularly as soloist and chamber musician in New York City. Outside of the New York area, she has performed in more than 200 cities in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, including a concerto performance with the St. Petersburg State Symphony in Russia, and recitals in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Paris, as well as at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and the Tenri Cultural Institute in Manhattan, and Kurzweil Recital Hall in Queens, among others. She has been the recipient of numerous performance and research awards and grants.

As a founding member and former concertmaster of the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra for over 15 years, and currently a principal member of Ensemble 365, a quintet specializing in international contemporary chamber music, she has participated in more than 100 premiere performances and 30 CD recordings.

She was formerly a principal guest artist of the Finger Lakes Chamber Music Festival and has been a soloist for Eliot Feld’s Ballet Tech at the Joyce Theater in New York City and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She was also formerly Concertmaster of the Dicapo Opera Theatre Orchestra, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, Bridgeport (CT) Symphony, and the Rutgers University Summerfest Orchestra. In addition to recording classical music, she has also recorded with the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and for numerous films, television shows, and popular artists.

Dr. Rostron received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Manhattan School of Music, where she studied violin with Raphael Bronstein and Ariana Bronne. In 2016 she earned a doctoral degree from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, with an award-winning dissertation focusing on analysis and performance of contemporary solo violin pieces by American composers.

Rostron serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division and Queensborough Community College, City University of New York. Her violin is by Camillus Camilli (Mantua, 1739).

Manhattan School of Music Precollege faculty since 1988.