British and Sri Lankan cellist Rohan de Saram was born in Sheffield on 9 March 1939 to Ceylonese parents. He studied with Spanish cellist and composer Gaspar Cassadó in Siena and Florence, and won an award which enabled him to study in the UK with John Barbirolli and in Puerto Rico with Pablo Casals.
Dimitri Mitropoulos invited him to play at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1960 - Khachaturian's Cello Concerto with Stanisław Skrowaczewski conducting.
From 1972 he lived in London, performing but also teaching at Trinity College of Music. He was a member of the Arditti Quartet (1979-2005) and later worked with other artists so that he could follow his own artistic vision. He toured and recorded with Markus Stockhausen's 'Possible Worlds' group and worked personally with Kodály, Poulenc, Shostakovich and Walton. He performed widely, working with major orchestras in Australia, Canada, Europe, USA and the former Soviet Union.
He gave first performances of many modern works. Luciano Berio wrote his 2002 Sequenza XIV for de Saram, which combined conventional cello playing with drumming on the cello body, since de Saram was also skilled at playing the Sri Lankan Kandyan drum, and de Saram gave first performances in many countries and also made the first recording. He also played classical cello works, including J S Bach's six solo cello suites, and various concertos and sonata cycles.
De Saram also explored the world of improvisation, sometimes working with the British free improvisation group AMM and appearing on the group's 1987 recording The Inexhaustible Document.
He created the De Saram Clarinet Trio and formed a duo with his brother Druvi.
Rohan de Saram died on 29 September 2024, aged eighty-five, leaving many recordings.
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