Romanul, Victor

Violinist who began playing professionally when he was only seven years old, and had already performed Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto” and Johannes Brahms’ “Violin Concerto” by the time he was thirteen.

His brother Alexander was also a violinist and his oldest brother Michael was a pianist. His grandmother, Stella Roman, was an opera singer who was hand-picked by Richard Strauss to play the lead in the world premiere of Frau Ohne Schatten. The three brothers performed as the Romanul Chamber Players in the 1970s.

Victor attended the Tanglewood Music Center and studied under Ivan Galamian, Jascha Heifetz, Alfred Krips, and Joseph Silverstein.

He became the associate concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1981 and stayed with them for about six years. In the early 1990s, he served as concertmaster of the Ars Poetica Chamber Orchestra, which was based in Detroit, Michigan. He joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1992. From 1993 to 1995, he occupied the post of assistant concertmaster.

Other groups with whom he has worked include the Boston Artists Ensemble, the Boston Conservatory Chamber Players, the Bristol Chamber Orchestra, the Great Woods Chamber Orchestra, and the Parkway Concert Orchestra.

In 1995, he appeared on the album, Mozart: Quartets for Flute and Strings. Other recordings on which he appears include Duos for Violin and Viola, with violist Michael Zaretsky, Holiday Pops by the Boston Pops Orchestra and Keith Lockhart, and Keisuke Wakao Plays Mozart, Bach, Britten & Prokofiev. Duos for Violin and Viola includes John Williams’ “Duo Concertante”, which was written specifically for Michael and Victor.

On 3^rd November 2002, Victor was a guest soloist with the Bristol Chamber Orchestra at the First Baptist Church in Sharon, Massachusetts. The concert featured Sir Edward Elgar’s “Serenade for Strings”, Edvard Grieg’s “Two Elegiac Melodies”, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Symphony No. 29” and “Violin Concerto No. 5” (“Turkish”).

Victor and pianist Jerome Rosen offered up the complete cycle of Ludwig van Beethoven’s sonatas for piano and violin at the Goethe Institute in 2004. On 16^th June 2004, Victor performed the first movement of Beethoven’s “Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, Op. 61” on Classic Pops.

He was a guest soloist with the Great Woods Chamber Orchestra on 7^th May 2006 for their concert in Weber Theatre at Wheaton College. Their program comprised “The Last Spring” and “Two Elegiac Melodies” by Edvard Grieg, “Symphony No. 4 in A, Op. 90” (“Italian”) by Felix Mendelssohn, and “Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26” by Max Bruch.

On 6^th May 2007, he was a guest soloist with the Parkway Concert Orchestra at Saint Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts. His charge was performing “Zigeunerweisen” by Pablo de Sarasate to close the curtain on the first act. In December 2007, he opened the PCO’s second set with “Winter” from The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi.

On 14^th March 2010, he performed the entire cycle of Eugene Ysaye’s solo violin sonatas at the First Baptist Church in Mansfield, Massachusetts. The recital also included works by John Cage, Pietro Locatelli, Sergei Prokofiev, Emile Sauret, Augusta Read Thomas, and Henri Vieuxtemps.

On 6^th July 2010, he and pianist Miri Yampolsky performed Johannes Brahms’ complete cycle of sonatas for piano and violin at the Cornell Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts in Ithaca, New York.

He and the aforementioned violist Michael Zaretsky performed “An Evening of Duos” at the Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum on 24^th July 2010. The duos represented were “Chant IV for Violin and Viola” by Jakov Jakoulov, “Duo Concertante No. 3 in C, Op. 15” by Alessandra Rolla, “Duo Concertante for Violin and Viola” by John Williams, “Duo for Violin and Viola, Op. 13” by Louis Spohr, and “Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola” by Bohuslav Martinu.

In the field of music education, Victor has taught chamber music, pedagogy and violin at the Boston Conservatory, coached the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, and given master classes at Columbia, Northwestern, Oberlin, the State University of New York in Stony Brook, and the Tanglewood Music Center.

Sources:

Romanul, Victor

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