JAVS Fall 2024

In Memoriam

In Memoriam: Roger Elgin Myers

Roger Elgin Myers, violist, teacher, friend, died February 25, 2024.

Roger Elgin Myers (FRSA) was an Australian-American concert violist and beloved academic. He was Fellow of the Florence Thelma Hall Centennial Chair in Music and the longstanding professor of viola at University of Texas Austin. Myers was born and raised in Sydney, Australia in a musical family. His father had a piano background and, though a political journalist, was also a periodic music critic for the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. His mother was an extraordinary Australian concert pianist who was forced to retire due to illness at an early age, but her love and joy of music influenced Roger. At 12, Myers was cast to sing in three professional productions with Opera Australia as a boy soprano. He continued his education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music before leaving to study in the United States in 1987. He studied under Donald McInnes at the

University of Southern California, earning both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in viola performance.

Myers served as faculty at several summer music programs and was the founder and artistic director of the Blanton Chamber Music Series at the Blanton Museum in Austin. An active member in the viola community, he served as the artistic director and Host Chairman of the XXV Silver Anniversary International Viola Congress in 1997. Along with his career as a performer, Myers was also the professor and the former Head of The String Division at the University of Texas at Austin, Butler School of Music. After the announcement of Myers’ passing from cancer in February of 2024, an outpour of messages, photos, and memories began to flood the JAVS inbox…

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Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 40, No. 2, Fall 2024

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