CANTON, OHIO (February 10, 2015) - A YouTube star will be the next guest soloist for the Canton Symphony Orchestra. Cellist, Joshua Roman is set to perform Dvo?ák's Cello Concerto in b minor with the CSO on Sunday February 22 at a special matinee time of 3:00pm in Umstattd Performing Arts Hall. Music Director Gerhardt Zimmermann explains that " The theme of the concert, Czech Mates, is derived from the fact that all the pieces on the program, the Dvo?ák, Mozart's Symphony No. 38 "Prague", and Suk's Scherzo Fantastique, were written by a composer from the Czech Republic or in the case of Mozart, inspired by that country."
Joshua Roman became a YouTube sensation in 2009 with his video series titled "The Popper Project" where he performed and uploaded the complete David Popper's High School of Cello Playing to his dedicated YouTube channel. The set of 40 études, a set of solos written to assist musicians in instrumental technique, took Roman over three years to complete and attracted over 500,000 views to date. He earned both Bachelor and Master degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and spent two years as principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony, a position he won at the age of 22. In 2013, Roman gave a premiere of Dreamsongs, a new cello concerto written for Roman by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Alabama Symphony and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional del Ecuador, among many others.Videos