Beloved favorites for flute and piano from the past and present. Matthew Roitstein, Principal Flutist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and pianist Mei Rui perform classics by Mozart, Dvorak, and Godard, and new music by composers Katherine Hoover and Karim Al-Zand.
Performance Location: The Centrum, 6823 Cypresswood Dr., Spring 77379
Date & Time: 3:00 p.m. May 9, 2023
Tickets: $15 Adult, $12 Senior, $10 Child/Student, $10 Groups of 6 or more
Season Ticket Sales: On Sale Now
Single Ticket Sales: 9am, Monday, August 2, 2021
MATTHEW ROITSTEIN
Originally from Valencia, California, Matthew Roitstein is the Principal Flutist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He came to St. Louis after eight years as Associate Principal Flutist with the Houston Symphony, with whom he toured through Europe and South America, and had also been featured as a concerto soloist on multiple occasions.
Previously a member of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and Sarasota Opera Orchestra, Roitstein has also performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco, Dallas, Detroit, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras. Music festival appearances include the Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Britt Festival Orchestra, Arizona Musicfest, Aspen, and Sarasota Music Festivals. Roitstein can be heard on recordings with the Houston Symphony and New World Symphony, as well as on Gloria Estefan’s 2013 album, The Standards. In 2018 he recorded Studies in Nature, a trio for flute, viola, and harp by award-winning composer Karim Al-Zand, on an album of Al-Zand’s chamber music. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Roitstein commissioned, premiered, and recorded two new works for the flute and piano repertoire: Ignoble Dances, by Karim Al-Zand, and Paradiddles, by Matthew’s father, David Roitstein. In 2023 he will premiere a new piece for alto flute and piano by Amanda Harberg.
An enthusiastic educator, Roitstein has taught extensively in the U.S. as well as throughout South and Central America. He has been on the faculty of the Interlochen Arts Camp since 2018, and Bard College since 2021. Roitstein’s orchestral career was most influenced by two particularly impactful periods in his own education: his fellowship at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, and his graduate studies at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music under conductor Larry Rachleff. He received his Bachelor’s Degrees in both architecture and music from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was the 2007 winner of the MIT Symphony Concerto Competition. His primary flute teachers were Leone Buyse and Seta Der Hohannesian, and other significant teachers include Mark Sparks, Elizabeth Rowe, Stephen Kujala, Gary Woodward, Pedro Eustache, and Matthew’s mother, Rosy Sackstein.
Matthew Roitstein is a Powell Artist and plays on a handmade 14K Powell flute.
MEI RUI
The Bronze Medalist of the World Piano Competition in 2015, Dr. Mei Rui was praised by the Boston Globe as a “riveting” virtuoso, and by Boston Musical Intelligencer as a concert artist with “deeply felt and intense musicality.” New York Classical Review writes of her Grammy- nominated recording “Three by Three” by Eric Nathan (Albany Records): “Rui was amazing at what seemed to be impossible; an excellent pianist with extreme virtuosity.” She has performed to critical acclaim in the United States and abroad, including recent performances of Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.3 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Yale Philharmonic, Rachmaninoff Concerto No.2 with the TMC Orchestra at Hobby Center, Rachmaninoff Concerto No.1 with WDO with synchronous projection of her fMRI brain scans.
A graduate of Yale, she holds duo-degrees in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (B.A.) and Music (M.M.& A.D.) While pursuing her D.M.A., she taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Organic and General Chemistry at the Sophie Davis Biomedical School at the City University of New York. In 2020, Dr. Rui was appointed the first Assistant Professor of Music Medicine in the Department of Surgery at Houston Methodist and Weill Cornell Medical College. She also serves as an Artist Collaborator at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Her research focuses on investigating the neurophysiological mechanisms and impact of music intervention in clinical and musician cohorts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she founded the MUSICARE (Musicians United for Service in Care) Initiative with the Houston Symphony, which brought over 400 live bedside concerts to isolated ICU patients. In Spring 2023 she will spearhead a new Music-in-Medicine Initiative (MIMI) at MD Anderson Cancer Center as Assistant Professor of Music Medicine in the Department of Neurosurgery.
An avid chamber musician, Dr. Rui has performed at the Ravinia, Yellow Barn, PMP, Taos, Music Academy of the West, Norfolk, and Van Cliburn Piano Institute. She has collaborated on stage with some of the most eminent musicians in the world, including George Manahan, Brinton Smith, Shinik Hahm, Paul Katz, Roger Tapping, Eric Halen, David Halen, Itzhak Perlman, Bill Vermeulen, and Peter Frankl. A dedicated educator, Dr. Rui was inducted into the prestigious Steinway Teacher Hall of Fame in 2019. She taught at the Yale School of Music (2004-2007) prior to starting her piano studio in New York and later in Houston. She was invited to serve on the Piano Faculty at Yellow Barn Festival’s Young Artists Program in 2014. She has given masterclasses and coached chamber music groups at the American Festival of the Arts, and at the Houston High School of Performing Arts. In 2014, her students swept the first and second prizes in the middle and high school divisions at the HMTA competition. Numerous of her students have given their Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center debut performances in New York. Many others have garnered top prizes in numerous competitions.
A native of Shanghai, Mei began her piano studies at the age of 3, and was accepted into the Shanghai Conservatory of Music 3 years later. She gave her first solo recital at the age of 10 in front of an illustrious audience that included the President of Austria and other international dignitaries at the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna. At age 11, she made her orchestral debut soloing with the Beijing Radio Symphony. She won numerous regional and national competitions in China, and her performances were featured multiple times on Chinese national television and radio stations. As a soloist, she has played with the Beijing Radio Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music Philharmonic, Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, and Yale Philharmonic. She has performed in some of the most prestigious concert venues in the world, including a season-opening concert at the Louvre Museum Auditorium in Paris, Bennet Gordon Hall in Chicago, Jordan Hall in Boston; Carnegie Hall (Weill), Steinway Hall, Merkin Hall, Stellar Performing Arts Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and Borden Auditorium in New York; San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Duncan Hall in Houston; Woolsey Hall and Sprague Hall in New Haven; San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio; National Concert Hall in Taipei; Lehman Hall in Santa Barbara; Beijing Concert Hall and Shanghai Grand Concert Hall.
Turning down full scholarship offers from both the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of music, she enrolled in the highly selective B.A./M.M. program at Yale, where she was the recipient of the prestigious Joseph Selden Memorial Award for excellence in the Arts, the Sheffield Scientific Scholarship, the Bruce Simonds Scholarship, and the George W. Miles Scholarship. Other awards include the Seldon Award, Van Gelder Memorial Award, the McDermott Scholarship, the Lowenthal Fellowship; top prizes in the San Antonio International Piano Competition, Manhattan School of Music Concerto Competition, William Waite Concerto Competition, Yale Chamber Music Competition, the Kingsville International Competition, and the Kosciusko Chopin International Competition. Some of Dr. Rui’s most influential mentors include Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, Gil Kalish, Phillip Kawin, Jerome Lowenthal, Seth Knopp, and Robert McDonald. Dr. Rui is a Yoga-Alliance certified RYT-300 yoga instructor, a PADI- certified SCUBA diver, and a proud mama to her 4-year-old daughter, 7-year-old son, and a dachshund named Ludwig.
Concert Program – Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) – Rondo in D Major, K. Anh. 184
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) – Romance in F Minor, Op. 11
Katherine Hoover (1937-2018) – Kokopeli, Op. 43
Karim Al-Zand (1970) – Ignoble Dances (2020)
I. Antemasque
IV. Distanced Dance
V. JB Dances a Jig in the Gloom
III. Dance of Denial
Benjamin Godard (1849-1895) – Suite for Flute and Piano, Op. 116