Violist Rachel Roberts has balanced her career between solo apperances and chamber ensemble work. She is also an important educator in the U.K. Roberts attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, studying viola and graduating with distinction. Roberts also has a professional certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher and Professional Education and, more unusually, a degree in executive and business coaching. For the first part of her career she was an orchestral violist, culminating in a 15-year stint as principal violist with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Since leaving the orchestra in 2013 she has emerged as a soloist and chamber player. She joined London's Conchord Ensemble as violist in 2012 and with that group has recorded such works as Mozart's Trio in E flat major for clarinet, viola, and piano, K. 498 ("Kegelstatt") and Britten's Phantasy Quartet. That group appeared at the BBC Proms in 2013. Roberts has performed as a soloist internationally with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, and Kammerphilharmonie Graubunden, as well as the Philharmonia and other groups. Unusually active as a chamber player, she is violist of the Dante Quartet, with which she has made several recordings, and she appeared at an all-star Wigmore Hall chamber concert with Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, and Denes Varjon. In 2011 Roberts recorded the Brahms Viola Sonata, Op. 120, with pianist Lars Vogt, a frequent duet partner, and she has gone on to record several well-regarded albums for the CAvi-Music label. On Hyperion, she joined the Leonore Piano Trio for a recording of chamber works by Hubert Parry in 2019. Roberts teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she offers one-to-one teaching and group coaching in viola performance. Roberts made world headlines in 2017 when she was forced to pay for an extra seat for her viola on a British Airways flight; she subsequently called for a boycott of the airline. ~ James Manheim