Ellen Rose

Ellen Rose, a Juilliard School graduate, has served as principal viola of the Dallas Symphony since 1980.  She has performed with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Yo-Yo Ma in chamber music concerts and has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in the U.S., Europe and South America. She served on the Aspen Music Festival faculty from 1989 to 2002 and currently teaches at Southern Methodist University. Rose can be heard on two CDs on the Centaur Records label.

She has given master classes at The Juilliard School; Manhattan School of Music; and the Cleveland Institute of Music. She has been a performer and guest speaker at the Viola National International Congresses in Sweden and the U.S. She has written two books: Extreme Viola (a scale book) and Viola Excerpts Plus.

In January 2010 she presented a world premiere of a viola concerto commissioned by the Dallas Symphony, dedicated to her by award-winning composer Margaret Brouwer. In March 2012 she recorded the concerto, with maestro Jaap van Zweden conducting members of the DSO.

In 2010, she traveled to Romania to do master classes and a chamber music concert. In summer 2010 she joined the faculty of the Summer Institute in Budapest, Hungary. In November 2012 she did a recital tour of China in Beijing, Shanghai and Kunming, giving master classes and coaching string ensembles at the Beijing Conservatory of Music and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Her recital fee in Kunming was donated to the Kunming International Academy to buy instruments and create scholarships. In July 2013 she participated in festivals in Romania and Hungary.

As a fundraiser, she has worked with Children’s Medical Center of Dallas to raise money for the children’s cancer unit and has raised funds for the Nelson Children’s Center in Denton, Texas, for abused and abandoned children. She was a volunteer counselor at the Dallas Pregnancy Resource Center. Currently she volunteers at the JFK Learning Center, a Dallas Independent School District school specializing in partnering with parents and the community for student academic excellence.