Perry Roth
Biography
Perry Roth is on faculty at Kent State University’s Hugh A. Glauser School of Music, The College of Wooster, The Hartt School Community Division, and is the saxophone teaching artist for the Yale School of Music—Music in Schools Initiative. Roth is an accomplished solo artist, chamber musician and educator. He holds the tenor saxophone chair in the Barkada Quartet, which he joined in the spring of 2017. As an avid performer, he has appeared with the Baton Rouge Symphony, the Connecticut Valley Symphony, the Hartt Symphony, the JACK Quartet, the American Modern Ensemble, and the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra. Roth has commissioned or premiered new works by composers Martin Bresnick, Joel Love, David Macbride, Marc Mellits, Carlos Simon and Mischa Zupko, among others.
He previously taught at The Hartt School, University of Hartford (College Division) and the University of Massachusetts—Amherst. In the summers, he is the saxophone teaching artist for the Yale School of Music—Morse Summer Music Academy and is a teaching associate for the American Saxophone Academy.
As a soloist, Roth has performed concertos with the Foot in the Door Contemporary Players, Capital University Wind Ensemble, Louisiana State University Wind Ensemble and the Kent State Wind Ensemble. He won the 2019 Paranov Concerto Competition resulting in a performance of John Anthony Lennon’s "Symphonic Rhapsody" with the Hartt Wind Ensemble. In addition to his collegiate studies, Dr. Roth has performed in the Brevard Music Center summer festival, and was awarded fellowships as the first-ever saxophonist at both New Music on the Point in 2014 and Yale’s Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, New Music Workshop in 2018.
Dr. Roth is an annual performer and presenter at the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial and Regional Conferences, and the International Navy Band Saxophone Symposium. He was a semi-finalist in the 2012 International Saxophone Symposium and Competition and can be heard on both the Innova and Impermanence record labels.
He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in saxophone performance with a minor in music history from The Hartt School, University of Hartford. At Hartt, he was a graduate teaching fellow and recipient of the Regents’ Honor Award, the university’s most prestigious award for graduate students. He earned a Master of Music degree in saxophone performance from Louisiana State University, where he was the saxophone teaching assistant. Additionally, Dr. Roth earned a Bachelor of Music Education and a Performer’s Certificate from the University of South Carolina. His principal teachers include Jan Berry Baker, Griffin Campbell, Connie Frigo, Carrie Koffman, Clifford Leaman, and Deborah Chodacki (clarinet). For more information please visit perryrothmusic.com.
Attend Kent State's Saxophone Day