Rohan de Saram

Cellist Rohan de Saram became well known both for his advocacy of contemporary music and for his nearly three decades of service in the Arditti Quartet, itself a bastion for the performance and championing of new music. Though de Saram was active in performing contemporary music, he hardly neglected more traditional fare: his repertory was so vast it would take pages to list and so eclectic there was hardly a nationality or musical tradition not included. To mention a sampling of his repertory, de Saram played Baroque to present-day, taking in standards by J.S. Bach, Beethoven, and Prokofiev, and he regularly performed contemporary works by Berio, Carter, Feldman, and scores of others. De Saram had more than 40 works dedicated to him, works he generally premiered. De Saram died in London on September 29, 2024, aged 85.